THE LAST OF THE CHIFNEYS. 179 



l)e said to have fast sunk into the shade, a beaten man, 

 and perhaps too proud a one to stoop again to conquer. 



This is rather a recollection than a biography, but 

 it may be as well to give an outline of William Chifney's 

 eventful life. He was born, then, at Newmarket in 1784, 

 and the senior by two or three years of his brother Samuel. 

 His father was the first Sam Chifney, the great jockey of 

 his time, and his mother was the daughter of Frank 

 Smallman, once trainer to the Prince Regent, from whom 

 he received a pension up to the time of his death. Surely 

 there never was such a pedigree for a trainer or jockey, 

 and the very maiden name of the senior Chifney's wife 

 was suggestive of her sons' pursuits. She had in all, we 

 believe, six children, Will, Sam, and four daughters ; one 

 of whom married Mr. Weatherby, of Newmarket, and 

 another, the wife of Butler the trainer, was the mother of 

 Prank and William Butler; while a third daughter, 

 unmarried, died a year or two since. We gather from 

 that remarkable work, ^' Genius Genuine, by Samuel 

 Chifney, of Newmarket, published in 1804, and sold for 

 the author at 232, Piccadilly, and nowhere else, price 

 five pounds V* — we learn upon this good authority that 

 Samuel and William Chifney were in the Prince's stable, 

 where they *^ had but eight guineas a year wages, the same 

 as the least boy in the stable, for which they rode exercise 

 the same as other boys." But Genius Genuine is full of 

 the author's troubles, and he complains of both his sons 

 being turned *^ out of stable and house, from board," by 

 Col. Leigh, the Prince's manager. What a wonderful book 

 it is, with the quaint conceit of the very title carried out in 

 every page ! It was said some years since of the second Sam 

 Chifney that he was ^' always funky when leading with a 

 large field in his rear ;" but we believe that his love of 



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