The Darley Arabian. 203 



each time, and they would not have it when Mr. Parr 

 privately told them before the race how good he be- 

 lieved him to be. The Admiral, however, avowed 

 candidly that he had been far too much prejudiced, or 

 he would have taken advantage of this warning voice 

 from Benhams. Then came the great coup for the 

 Cesarewitch, on which several of the ring dons so com- 

 pletely overlaid their books against him, that Mr. Parr, 

 who had gof on at fifties, laid off about six thousand 

 of it in a ten minutes' walk between his lodgings and the 

 Rooms. In fact, he was fairly beset, and never paid 

 so dearly for a little exercise before or since. Mr. 

 Megson bought the horse after that for twenty-five 

 hundred, and they thought him, from his Salisbury 

 running at the beginning of his four-year-old season, a 

 still better horse than he had ever been ; but the 

 Northampton race overset him, and he never won 

 again. Kingston smashed him and Teddington up 

 together for The Whip, and the horse at whose name 

 ancient listers still turn pale, passed through Mr. 

 Blenkiron's hands to the French Government, and it 

 seems left to Mandrake to raise up seed to the house 

 of Weatherbit. 



The King Fergus line was full of The Sons of 

 Herod blood, as Hambletonian was out ^^^s Fergus. 

 of a Highflyer, and Beningboro' out of a Herod mare. 

 The latter, for whom 3500 guineas was refused, was a 

 horse of very great stamp, and the living image of 

 Herod himself. He died at Middleham, full of years 

 and stud-honours, and was buried under a mulberry 

 tree in front of Mr. Dinsdale's house. His son Orvile 

 dipped into the Herod blood again, and inherited his 

 deep saucer eyes from his Highflyer dam. 



Orvile was the first of Beningboro's get ^^^^ 

 that ever started ; and William Edwards 

 always declared that while Selim was the speediest, 

 he was the best for all lengths that he ever rode. 

 His lungs and courage were quite inexhaustible. As 



