Priam and Zinganee. 1 63 



his son. Mr. Nightingale once gave a race in Scot- 

 land by " two or three inches," but perhaps the most 

 difficult finish to decide was the Zetland Stakes at 

 the York Spring of '56. We asked Mr. Johnson how 

 he ever contrived to place them as he did, and he told 

 us that when he saw the five hard at it head and 

 head, he felt that he dared not watch them as they 

 came, but turned and kept his eyes firm on the white 

 line, and just hit them off with a glance as they passed 

 it. If he had given it a dead heat of five, neither 

 jockeys nor spectators would have been a whit the 

 wiser, though the "roughs" chose to be savagely 

 critical when Mildew beat Cantab at York, and sent 

 Mr. Clark in hot haste from the chair to the weighing- 

 room. Sam never forgot many of his father's precepts, 

 and always liked "to lie under the wind" in a race, 

 but he had none of his love of check cords, and seldom 

 resorted to his desperate resort of spurring a horse in 

 the brisket. " I find when it comes to the last spring," 

 Old Sam used to say, ** I can get a head there when I 

 can get it nowhere else." Sam also rode closer with 

 his knees, and was not so loose and slovenly in his 

 jockey costume, and although both are equally silent 

 and proud in their way, especially in refusing mounts 

 they did not like, no one ever saw the younger one 

 perpetually on the trot up and down Newmarket 

 "with his coat buttoned behind," a practice which 

 seemed to keep the senior in riding form. Old Mat 

 Stephenson was however much more unique in his 

 dress, and always wore a rusty hunting cap when he 

 superintended the sweats, and had a boy carrying the 

 spare sweating cloths on an old coach horse, which 

 eventually glandered nearly all Lord Grosvenor's 

 string. 



But we are not yet quite at the ending post with 

 Sam. In 1842 he rode the bay colt by Agreeable, 

 dam by Sam, for Mr. Meiklam, in the Derby, where 

 he ran fifth ; and also wasted and went to Doncaster 



M 2 



