BIRD-ON-THE-WING’S ILLNESS, 183 
Now suppose for a moment the horse had been struck out, 
and being engaged in other races at the same meeting, had won 
one of them. It would have been said immediately, a more 
outrageous and infamous robbery had never been more in- 
geniously concocted or carried out with effrontery so unblush- 
ing ; that he had been backed by the public for thousands upon 
thousands at all sorts of prices, and that the stable, having got 
the last guinea out of him, had made him go lame and had 
struck him out, knowing he was as well as any horse could be. 
His subsequent running would have been pointed to as proof, 
with the positive assertion that he could have won the Cup 
just as easily, had he been sent for it. It would have been 
added that horses often pull up lame from leg-weariness which 
soon passes off, and that this had been the real cause of his ap- 
parent break-down ; and the whole would have wound up with 
the triumphant and significant remark: “That the man in the 
street knew that it was so, and that the motive of his having 
been so suddenly struck out must ever remain a secret to all 
save those engaged in this profitable but dishonest transaction.” 
And what was it all? Simply a clear case of leaving the 
horse in though he had lamed himself; on learning which, the 
public, forming their own wise conclusions, clamoured to have 
him struck out. 
Again, I give an instance of a like nature. Exactly ten days 
before Bird-on-the-wing had to run at Doncaster, her owner 
came to see her, when at five o'clock in the evening (stable time) 
she was taken ill, apparently in excruciating pain; and our 
veterinary surgeon, Mr. Snow, passing quite accidentally at 
the moment, was called in to see her. He said she was 
suffering from acute inflammation of the lungs and was 
dangerously ill, and prescribed, besides medicines for internal 
administration, blisters for both her sides, and bleeding, as well 
