The Byerly Turk. 185 



Long before Lord Jersey sent his j^j^^i^t^^ 

 Cobweb to Sultan, he had no common 

 Epsom luck with the V/eb by Waxy blood. Web's 

 son, the chestnut Middleton by Phantom, had won 

 the only race he ever ran for ; but that was the 

 Derby, in which Actaeon was beaten and Cain fell. 

 After that, he bolted away with Sam Barnard, who 

 thought he was going to Bury, and played the deuce 

 with everybody and everything. When he was first 

 broken he shambled and rolled so in his action, and 

 seemed so utterly unable to walk, that Lord Jersey 

 and Edwards thought there was not a hope for him. 

 He was of a Suffolk Punch stamp ; a bigger-boned 

 horse, and with nothing like the liberty of Bay Mid- 

 dleton. Like Plenipo, a T.Y.C. was his forte, and, 

 owing to his weight, he did not care to carry himself 

 much farther ; but for that distance Robinson always 

 thought him better than Bay Middleton. For speed, 

 trial horses were no good to him ; and he could have 

 trotted past the post in the Derby. They only laid 

 seven to four against him at starting, little knowing 

 the perils he had escaped that morning. His lad had 

 been got at ; and when he was entrusted with a bucket 

 of water to plait his mane, he allowed him to drink it 

 off, and there was nothing but the sponge when Ran- 

 some, who w^as then the head lad, came in. The cul- 

 prit vowed that he had thrown the rest down the sink ; 

 but the evidence of guilt was so clear, that at first 

 Edwards thought it was all over. However, his spirits 

 revived when he had walked the horse four miles from 

 Mickleham to The Warren ; but he looked so barrel- 

 like at the post, that Lord Jersey remarked that he 

 must have had more water than they knew of. Still 

 Edwards stuck to it that he was throwing off his food 

 as he rode with him to the course; and that, "even 

 with five gallons inside, nothing could tonch him." And 

 so it happily proved, and Lord Jersey's and the Duke 

 of Wellington's coachmen were said to have won 



