SECOND PERIOD: GEORGE III 79 



'the hope of the family' (and justified the hope 

 by bequeathing to the nation a mountain of debt), 

 won the first of his two Derbys with Prince 

 Leopold (by Hedley, the name of Mr. Ladbroke's 

 country-place), the second having been won in 

 1822 with Moses (by Seymour or Whalebone). 



It was in the reign of George III. that the 

 now highly esteemed progenitor Blacklock, whose 

 character the late Dr. Shorthouse spent several 

 years in attempting to blacken, lost the St. Leger, 

 which he should have won (in 18 17), and so 

 missed inscription among the winners of the great 

 races and his proper place in the memory of 

 mankind. 



There is a story to the effect that Blacklock — 

 whose fate it was to drop down dead immediately 

 after performing his duty as a stud-horse, Feb- 

 ruary 24, 1 83 1, when he was 'rising' seventeen — 

 was dug up, about six years after his death, from 

 his grave under the lawn at Bishop Burton Hall, 

 the seat of his owner, Mr. Richard Watt, and 

 'put together by an anatomist'; that Mr. Watt 

 paid ^10 for a 'skeleton-rider, that yapped his 

 teeth when a string was pulled'; and that this 

 spectral combination was exhibited to the yokels 



