14^ The Post and the Paddock. 



his advice in his Tattersall's operations on Monday. 

 It ran as follows : — 



" Sunninghill Wells, Monday morning, 8 o'clock. 



*' My Lord, — I lose no time in answering your lordship's note, 

 desiring me to remit my opinion of the horses in the Ascot Cup. 



** Cadland and Mameluke are good horses ; the latter, at times, shows 

 temper, and will require the most skilful management to make him run 

 his best form amongst a field of horses, and the slightest mistake in this 

 respect will be fatal to him for the race. The Colonel is badly shaped : 

 his ribs and quarters are much too large and heavily formed, and will 

 cause him to tire and to run a jade ; independent of this defect, the 

 course, of all others, is especially ill suited to him, and will cause him to 

 fall an easy victim. Still his party are so exceedingly fond of him as 

 to think no horse can defeat him, and they have backed him for an 

 immense sum. In the face of all this, I entertain the most contemptible 

 opinion of him, for the distance of ground, and I fear nothing whatever 

 from him. Lamplighter is not sufficiently good to cope with the com- 

 pany he will have to meet ; and neither Green Mantle nor Varna, 

 although good mares, can have a chance with the old horses over this 

 strong course. 



" I have the best horse in England at this moment in Zinganee ; and 

 if the race is desperately run, which I hope and anticipate it will be, and 

 my brother sends him out the last three-quarters of a mile, to keep the 

 pace severe, I shall be very much surprised and greatly disappointed if 

 I do not see him with the Cup on Thursday without the slightest degree 

 of trouble, notwithstanding the powerful field of horses he has to contend 

 against. 



** I am, your Lordship's most obedient servant, 



•' William Chifney. 



** The Earl of Darlington." 



Such a Carnival, as far as carriages were con- 

 cerned, has never been seen at Ascot, either before 

 or since. " Through the wood follow me !" was the 

 key-note of every Justice Shallow, Falstaff, and 

 " Merry Wife" for twenty miles round Windsor on 

 that great Cup day, whose next anniversary saw the 

 pulse that beat highest in the royal stand faintly 

 ebbing away. The carriages were in some places 

 nearly twenty deep by the side of the cords, and the 

 verderers declared that nearly " half a mile of them" 

 never reached the course at all till the Cup was run 

 for. After three false starts, George Edwards, on 

 the 2000-guinea Bobadilla, made the running till 



