242 The Post and the Paddock. 



who flourished about 18 15. Black Sultan, who was 

 the property of Mr. Hiles, a miller at Shrews- 

 bury, was far away the greatest of the three, and 

 to this day the Shropshire men vow that almost 

 every hunter with a black or chestnut skin bears 

 kindred to the old horse, just as almost every ugly- 

 headed hunter, for the fifth of a century has been 

 consiL)tently fathered on Belzoni. An immense number 

 of his stock, after a wondrous jumping career, went 

 stone blind. The Yorkshire Comus, on the contrary 

 (who seemed to get nothing but greys and chestnuts), 

 went blind when he was rising four, and he was never 

 known, that we heard of, to get a blind one. It is 

 also a fact that a well-known second-rate blood sire 

 went blind early in the year, and, contrary to his 

 usual luck, almost every mare that was served by 

 him during that season threw a filly. 



But we are not yet done with Shropshire. Planet, 

 by Dungannon, Driver, a three-parts bred, and Ro- 

 sario by Ambrosio, a rather low-tailed horse ; Mr. 

 Gore's Hesperus, Pilkington, the maternal uncle of 

 Ion, the sire of countless flashy fine goers, whom the 

 dealers loved, and the long and low Gimcrack, the 

 property, along with Planet, Rosario, Champion, 

 and Pilkington, of the Clays of Wem, who never 

 lacked a good horse, also rank among their paddock 

 worthies. Then there was Spectre, son of Phantom, 

 who came from the Ludlow district, and with the 

 then young Jemmy Chappie on his back, made very 

 short work of the Newmarket horses in the Audley 

 End. No wonder the Heath-men did not fancy him, 

 as he was a thick lumpy horse, and could not get a 

 real racer, with the exception of Sceptic, and he 

 came ofl" Second-h^'i\, so perpetually, that he was 

 generally known by that name. His stock were all 

 a thick style of horse, but not one of them are left 

 in the Ludlow hunt, or indeed anywhere else. Man- 

 fred, by Election, became Mr. Lechmere Charlton's 



