2 14 '^'^^k a7id Scarlet. 



his fore-legs," as his fetlocks and pasterns almost 

 formed a straight line. He was a great black-brown, 

 with a stride which required half-a-mile to settle itself 

 in, a head like a half moon, with eyes quite in his 

 cheeks, and quarters and shoulders as fine as horse 

 could wear. Perhaps to the eye he might be rather 

 light in the fore ribs, though the tape told a different 

 tale, and the hocks of his stock generally stood well 

 away from them, a formation which requires great 

 strength in the loin to support. The hunting field 

 was quite as much their sphere as the race-course. 

 The Cambridgeshire men still remember how well 

 John Ward got to his hounds for seven seasons on 

 Forester, and there must have been nearly a thousand 

 of his grandsons, by the hollow-backed Belzoni, one 

 time or another, at the cover side. Mr. Watt gave 

 forty pounds for him as a two-year-old, and after his 

 great racing career he broke through his rule, and 

 kept him for the stud. The result was not encourag- 

 ing, as his legs frightened breeders away ; but Mr. 

 Kirby took him for a season at a hundred, and cleared 

 eight hundred per cent, by his bargain. Mr. Watt 

 then had him back for three seasons, and was begin- 

 ning the fourth with him, when he died. He had only 

 been racked up five minutes, when a helper came 

 running breathless after Elrington, and gasped out 

 '^ Blacklock's dying P' He had fallen on his side, and 

 never stirred again, and his heart was found to be 

 sloughed. Two fillies dated from that morning, a 

 chestnut filly, out of Sister to Bubastes, and Felix, by 

 him or Langar ; but Lady Laura, from whom he had 

 just been led in, had no foal. 



His son, Robin Hood, was virtually trained in his 

 old paddock, as he did little else than canter round it, 

 and then walked to Doncaster, where, after being 

 beaten by Laurel in the Cup, he walked on to Lincoln, 

 and won a seventy-pound plate. Cock Robin was the 

 smallest that Blacklock ever got, and very little beyond 



