264 The Post and the Paddock. 



Burgundy, had their flat indorsed by every member 

 of the great horse-flesh congress, who saw him aired 

 up and down the High-street at Doncaster on each of 

 the race mornings. Russia knew his value better than 

 Yorkshire, but he died almost immediately on landing. 

 Fencing has always been the forte of the Ishmaels, 

 and although Burgundy's performances were confined 

 to the turf, the tastes of the family have come pro- 

 minently out in Switcher, Shinrone, Israelite, and 

 Abd-el-Kader. The fact of his dam being an Ishmael 

 also augurs well for Augur, who is so wonderfully 

 muscular, that at first sight he would seem to have a 

 bend-sinister in his escutcheon. The inartistic applica- 

 tion of Major's Remedy threatened at one time to 

 strip every vestige of hair from his legs, and to eat off 

 his hoofs as well, and he actually lived on his knees 

 for weeks till they secreted again, the most extraor- 

 dinary object that veterinary ever beheld. Racing 

 mares, after this, seemed likely to claim his sole 

 attentions, as well as Rataplan's, and the hunting 

 interests to suffer accordingly. During his illness, 

 Augur might have been shown as *'a frightful 

 example ;" and, oddly enough, when we were last in 

 his adopted Lincolnshire, we met with a pony in a 

 park, which had run wild so long that her coronets 

 seemed to have entirely merged in the hoofs. In 

 fact, she stood to all appearance on her fetlocks, and 

 the hoofs had become nothing more or less than long 

 strips of horn curled up, and exactly resembling a 

 Chinese boot. Several efforts had been made to pare 

 them into shape, but nature had had her own sweet 

 will too long, and would not be denied. 



The Julius Caesars, of which the late Sir Harry 

 Goodricke's Limner was one of the very best, were 

 very bad to beat over the Midland Counties, in the 

 days when *' Frenchmen" and the multiplication of 

 covers had not begun to produce so many ringing 

 home-bred foxes. Sir Harry, who always rode rather 



