140 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



may fix many a white favour on liis bridle.* The stilty 

 Claret is duly presented at this great levee on his return 

 from Ireland ; and then "Windhound, the acknowledged 

 sireof Thormanby^ the Derby winner, immense in his power 

 and blood-like in his appearance, is called. But somehow 

 or other he does not please either judges or jur}^- those 

 -quarters and hind-legs are not liked, and he leaves with 

 the foregone conclusion that we shall see no more of 

 him. Over De Clare there is a far more serious confer- 

 ence, and his merits and drawbacks make out the longest 

 ^' case" of the whole assize. He has grown into a won- 

 derfully grand horse, and seems bound to get weight- 

 carriers, but he has the fatal defect of badlj^-placed 

 shoulders, and these no doubt stopped him. Still De 

 Clare has backers, and their Lordships are strangely loth 

 to let him go again. But what a contrast, as they meet, 

 is he to the corky, varmint, cheerful, hard-wearing Farn- 

 ham, with his frightfully fired fore-legs, the one ^^ slmtter- 

 iip," and not an ounce of flesh on his body. And note 

 how quickl}'- that one eye of his finds the furze fence the 

 hunters are to jump, and how ready he is to face it. He 

 iias topped many a one in his time, but that is scarcely 

 the thing now j and so by him and Dr. Sangrado, the 

 pleasant old-fashioned style of hunter that Marshall might 

 have painted, we hasten on to something of a little higher 

 form. It is here ready served in a moment, like the next 

 ^' remove" at a well-put dinner, when the appetite seems 

 to pall a Jittle at the more substantial dishes. How nicely 

 timed it does come to be sure, and how one does enjoy the 

 -change, after so much of the big, beefy Windhounds and 

 De Clares, to that neat, handsome, sweet bit of a racehorse, 



* The Hadji won the first prize at the All-Yorkshire Show a season 

 Ajr two after this was written. 



