Blood Mares. 209 



her dry. Launcelot was also, we believe, very trouble- 

 some at first, and The Magnet held out for three sea- 

 sons, but Tom Dawson still hoped on, and Magnifier 

 was the handsome result. 



Without a very stout cross indeed, it would be 

 almost hopeless to expect the Selim blood to stay. 

 Lords Exeter and Jersey have held the two great 

 branches of it ; and while the Burleigh stud generally 

 retained the gaudy face and legs of Crockford's horse, 

 the "Jersey bays" approached nearer the whole 

 colour of their dam Cobweb, one of the finest and 

 most perfect mares that ever looked through a bridle. 

 She always ran in flesh, and with the exception of a 

 few half-speed gallops, she did no work for nearly ten 

 days before the Oaks, for which Lord Jersey's coach- 

 man had 1200/. to 200/. about her, and stood it out. 

 Her own feet were very fine and sound ; but her 

 grandsire, Soothsayer, had a club foot, which com- 

 pelled him to do a good deal of his work on straw. 

 This defect, which slumbered for two generations, 

 brought unsoundness into her stock (of which Achmet 

 was perhaps the handsomest) ; and a slight contrac- 

 tion of one the front feet is observable in many of the 

 descendants of Bay Middleton. To see this horse go 

 curling and twisting up to the post, as was his wont, 

 one would have thought him rather weak-built and 

 faint-hearted, whereas he was quite the contrary, and 

 only kept from a great Gold Cup career by his leg 

 infirmity. Lord George Bentinck always believed 

 that his last lameness did not result from a break- 

 down in the back sinews, for which he was treated, 

 but from the snapping of a small bone in the foot. 

 He was a very fine specimen of a cross between Selim 

 and the Phantom blood, which was alike fortunately 

 combined with Partisan's in Glaucus, and with 

 Tramp's in Glencoe. It was equally well suited 

 with Catton's in the Flying Dutchman, and with 

 Paulowitz's in Wild Dayrell ; while Pyrrhus the 



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