Turf History. 19 



while others, with eyes solemnly fixed ceiling-wards, 

 insisted on waltzing with the cook and the other 

 domestics. We are bound to state that the former 

 seemed by no means to dislike this pleasing recog- 

 nition of the close of her labours. " You're going to 

 bed, aren't you .?" we said to an enthusiastic double- 

 event Richmond man ; but — " Go to bed indeed ! 

 You aren't half a man ! Who'd go to bed when 

 Voltigeur's won the Leger and the Cup T' was the 

 scornful reply. At Chester they have hardly this bed 

 option ; and he was a lucky fellow at one time who 

 did not object to being bodkin, or taking his turn be- 

 tween the sheets on alternate nights. A visitor once 

 vowed to us that he slept with his head on his great 

 coat and a door-mat in the passage for three entire 

 nights ; and we quite believe him. 



Much as was said and written about the Dutchman 

 and Voltigeur, we are inclined to fancy that neither of 

 them, in their best day, were so high-class as Ted- 

 dington and West Australian ; but still, it is worthy 

 of notice that these four, and Virago, Stockwell, who 

 was taken out of training long before he was on the 

 wane, and Fandango, were foaled in seven successive 

 seasons. 



We have thus traced the shifting Turf drama 

 through all its varied phases, up to the ever memo- 

 rable era of Wild Dayrell — '' the right horse in the 

 right place at last." Hunting men may sneer at him 

 and his class as being, one and all, in the condition of 

 the Frenchman's purchase, " who had three legs var 

 good, but de oder not qii-nite so good ;" commercial 

 men may be scandalized at the strange union of odds 

 and Consols which so often salutes their ears on 

 'Change, when one of " The Baron's" horses is in the 

 betting, and ponder in private over Boz's query, 

 whether horses are really " made more lively by being 

 scratched ;" John Bright may oppose the Queen's 

 Plates in supply, and express his supreme pain and 



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