142 The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



neck, and low croup of the dam, the foal inherited 

 invariably the style of the sire, and a handsome animal 

 was the result. 



One of my early acquaintances at the Curragh was 

 that ancient jockey, the most celebrated of his day, poor 

 old Johnny Doyle. He was terribly rheumatic at the 

 time of our acquaintanceship, which was scarcely to be 

 wondered at when he related that " for forty years I never 

 went to bed sober one single night, and very seldom knew 

 how I got there. One day the taste for drink suddenly 

 left me, and I have never tasted a drop since, and that is 

 nearly thirty years ago now." He was fond of sitting in 

 the sun and chatting over his racing career, and, as our 

 camp was pitched close to his cottage, I often strolled down 

 for a chat with him. He told me that he rode his first 

 race in 1803, at a meeting held in Shara vogue Park, near 

 Birr, now the property of the Earl of Huntingdon. The 

 earliest racehorses he looked after and rode were mostly 

 the grandsons of " Eclipse," but though he had often seen 

 sons of " Eclipse," he had never ridden any of them. His 

 opinion — like that of the late Colonel Hon. J. Westenra, 

 the grandfather of Lord Huntingdon (who then owned Shara- 

 vogue Park), and of Mr. Eichard Johnston (whose memory 

 did not go further back than 1819, when he saw 

 " Blacklock " win at York) — was that the racehorses of 

 that day were much stouter and hardier than those of the 

 present day, though undoubtedly not so speedy. At the 

 same time, he said that sixteen-hand horses were quite 

 common in his early days, and he did not see very much 

 increase in actual height. The shape and appearance, 

 though, had very much changed, and the older horses 

 were, as a rule, much deeper-bodied, and shorter-legged 



