" The Darley Arabian. 2 3 1 



he safd, " I had never called on nature too much, and 

 yet he went wrong, I couldn't tell how." There were 

 few horses in his long career that he had studied so 

 closely. Jaques was the last he fancied, and he gave 

 him away to Mr. Parr, with an injunction to run him 

 for the Goodwood Cup, but he dislocated a pastern in 

 his preparation. With all his acuteness, he was a man 

 of very great prejudice, and seemed often to speak of 

 training a horse to win a great race, without any refe- 

 rence to the field he might have to meet. He turned 

 very nervous during Foig-a-Ballagh's St. Leger, when 

 some one told him that Harry Bell was only lying 

 third or fourth below the distance. ''Confound the 

 fellow," we heard him say, ** I told him to come along, 

 we'll be beat for want of a pace." Ireland has had 

 the best of Sir Hercules, and both Birdcatcher and 

 Foig-a-Ballagh were out of a Bob Booty dam. 



Birdcatcher, who was a hard-puller, Birdcatcher. 

 and very fretful and difficult to train, 

 would stay a long course ; but his stock, who invari- 

 ably carry the Sir Hercules crest in the shape of a few 

 grey hairs at the root of the tail, rather inherit his fine 

 dash of speed, than his staying powers. He stood 

 over a good amount of ground, but he seldom got any 

 thing so long as himself. AH his stock were very 

 taking and gay as yearlings, though rather short, on 

 long legs, a little drooping behind, but with capital 

 back couplings. He invariably got them bright 

 golden chestnuts ; and if one happens to be a bay, it 

 has a good allowance of white about it. Mr. Jaques 

 paid as high as 800/. for him one season, when he 

 earned 1750 guineas, and got Saunterer and Augury 

 for his hirer as well. After trying so long for a crack, 

 he unluckily parted with the pair for 50 guineas each, 

 by auction, as foals at York, and John Osborne, who 

 loved the blood nearly as much as the late Mr. 

 Stephenson, refused, it was said, a thousand guineas 

 for Augury. At Newmarket in 1852, he had only six 



