. THE HORSE. 283 



puted in the Yorkshire stables. I do not remember 

 the mare being described to me as black, but how 

 else could Sampson have assumed that colour, seeing 

 that Blaze his sire and both the Hips were bay; 

 unless he inherited it from the black Barb, grandsire 

 of Blaze. Sampson was one of the truest four mile 

 horses that our Turf has produced, beating all the best 

 racers of his time, and was but once beaten, or even 

 whipped, until in his last race, his eyes and constitu- 

 tion failed him, when he was beat by Thwackum, 

 which he had before beaten. Sampson also proved a 

 capital stallion, and though it was the fashion at 

 Newmarket, to blame Lord Rockingham for breeding 

 from such a horse, his Lordship had a string of fine 

 and powerful horses, and among the most successful. 

 The mares of Engineer, a son of Sampson, were at one 

 period, in great request for the stud, and that blood 

 runs through many of our best pedigrees. Mr. Tat- 

 tersall lately showed me a portrait of Sampson in his 

 flesh, in which his defect of blood appears far more 

 obvious than in one which I had of him, galloping. 

 I have been thus particular to demonstrate by the 

 most striking fact known, that the miss of a single 

 dip of true blood does not mar the racer, stallion or 

 mare. The last, or Carter's Driver, winner of so 

 many country plates, was generally known not to 

 have been thorough bred, and I was told by a groom 

 who knew the horse, that he appeared only three 

 parts bred, a thing scarcely to be credited. 



The disputed pedigree of Eclipse, not indeed from 

 defect of blood, of which he had the maximum, has 

 been of late revived, with the usual ludicrous irritabi- 



