3? The Post and the Paddock. 



Robinson, and Harry Edwards, never issued side 

 by side from the Ditch stables. Yorkshire was 

 *' Old Harry's" great battle-field, where the unvarying- 

 brilliancy and power of his set-to and finishes not 

 only conferred no small lustre on the Fitzwilliam, 

 Kelburne, and Houldsworth jackets, but terrified 

 Tommy Lye at times to that degree, that he con- 

 fided to a friend he would " quite as lieve ride 

 against Sattan!' The club wits were not wide of the 

 mark when they said of Buckle, in 1823, 



*' For, trained to the turf, he still stands quite alone, 

 And a pair of such Buckles was never yet known — ^* 



as a faultless build for horseback, and forty years of 

 incessant practice, had combined to make him perfec- 

 tion. When he sent over his whip by the hands of 

 Mr. Tattersall, in 1826, to become a challenge prize 

 in Germany, he was enabled to add, by way of com- 

 mentary, that he had " won five Derbies, two St. 

 LegerSy nine Oaks, a7id nearly all the good things at 

 Newmarket!' In his sixty-first year he wasted to 

 /St. 81bs. for his favourite Rough Robin ; but though 

 he required no "walks" latterly, he kept himself in 

 such fine form, by constantly riding from Peterboro' 

 to Newmarket and back, a distance of ninety-two 

 miles, to say nothing of trials, that he was quite the 

 first four-mile man of his day. Sir Tatton Sykes and 

 Mr. Osbaldeston were his only compeers in horseback 

 endurance ; and, strange to say, he rode his last race 

 on one side of the Ditch only an hour before Mr. 

 Osbaldeston completed his great 200 mile match on 

 the other. With his saddle strapped for the last time 

 round his white cape coat, "the governor" cantered 

 off to cheer " The Squire," as he finished on Tranby, 

 but made some remark to the effect, " that though he 

 was fifteen years older, he could ride further and 

 longer ;" and was very nearly challenged to the proof. 

 *' To ride for twenty-five days, or till either of them 



