230 The Post and the Paddock, 



Holderness. The breeders of Durham horses confine 

 themselves more to Northallerton and Newcastle fairs, 

 which are also the great marts for the Cumberland 

 men. The latter, although they kept the first and 

 second blood-sire prizes against all comers, with 

 Ravenhill and British Yeoman, and made the other 

 horse-classes considerably less of a dead letter than 

 they had hitherto been, at the 1855 Royal Agricultu- 

 ral Show, breed almost solely for the carriage, and 

 hence it is next to useless to bring a chestnut horse, 

 however fine his points, in the county. When Mr. 

 Richard Fergusson, the owner of Ravenhill (who had 

 been re-christened " Royal Ravenhill," in token of his 

 triumph), introduced a coaching-sire about the year 

 1 8 19, he was assured by his neighbours that the 

 climate was too cold either for pure short-horns or 

 anything in horse's shape, that was more than half- 

 bred ; and it was only when he sold a pair of his 

 four-year-old Candidates for 150/., which shoitly after- 

 wards reached the King's stables for, as it was said at 

 the time, 300/., that a contrary conviction dawned on 

 them. Candidate, Bay Chilton, and Grand Turk, who 

 were all Northern Lights in their time, had very little 

 blood, but were fine sturdy specimens of a species of 

 Durham or rather Yorkshire coaching-horse, which is 

 now almost entirely superseded by thorough-breds. 

 In size they were a medium between Magog and Lord 

 Fauconberg, but decidedly the finest type of a coach- 

 horse we ever saw was a brown one by Screveton. 

 The light-boned Equator, the elegant little Royahst, 

 and the flashy-looking high-tempered Corinthian did 

 very little towards improving the breed, which was 

 principally kept up by the travels of The Earl and 

 Gregson, a remarkably fine specimen of a grey hunter- 

 sire. When his day was over, Mr. Richard Fergusson 

 kept up the grey charter by buying Grey Wiganthorpe 

 out of Yorkshire, and followed up this infusion of the 

 Comus blood into Cumberland, with successive strains 



