I02 TJie Post and the Paddock, 



former verdict was reversed ! Uppark in Sussex was 

 a favourite race-meeting in that day, and in addition 

 to the Duke of Dorset and his brother, the names of 

 Featherstone, Lade, Lake, Hanger, Delme RadcHffe, 

 and Tarlton were never absent from its silken fray. 

 A 60/. plate with Anvil over the D. I. in the autumn 

 of his maiden season was the first race which the 

 Prince ever won at Newmarket, and his stud, which 

 then only consisted of four or five, rose in 1790 to 

 forty-one ! Chifney senior had only ridden for him 

 about two seasons before the Escape affair, which took 

 place in 1791. The first sale of his stud at Tatter- 

 sail's was delayed till December 2nd of the following 

 year, and then the twenty-eight lots produced five 

 thousand guineas. Those who wonder now why the 

 Prince nobly chose rather to leave the turf altogether 

 than sacrifice his jockey, when Sir Charles Bunbury 

 intimated to him that no members of the Jockey Club 

 would make matches, or run horses in any stake where 

 Chifney rode, are not aware of what occurred with 

 Escape in the Ascot meeting of that year. It would 

 have been well if he had broken his fetlock in his year- 

 ling days, when he embedded it with a kick in the 

 wood work of his loose box, and caused his astonished 

 owner (Mr. Franco) to exclaim, when he heard the 

 story of his extrication from the groom — " Oh, what 

 an escape r and to christen him on the spot. Soon 

 after going into training he became a complete "rabbit" 

 in his running — " in-and-out," and so delicate withal, 

 that in spite of all Neale's care, he seldom kept his 

 condition for many days together. To give a man 

 such a treacherous brute to steer, and then to con- 

 demn him because he could not always win upon him, 

 would, as the Prince felt, have been the height of 

 injustice. In the Ascot instance, to which we are 

 alluding, he had entered four horses in the Oatlands ; 

 to wit — Escape, Baronet, Pegasus, and Smoker. 

 Some five days previous to the race, the four were 



