102 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
twenty-one minutes. He employed ten horses, and, allow- 
ing for mounting and dismounting, and a moment for re- 
freshment, he rode for six hours at the rate of twenty 
miles an hour. 
Mr. Thornhill, in 1745, exceeded this, for he rode from 
Stilton to London and hack, and again to Stilton, being 
two hundred and thirteen miles, in eleven hours and thirty- 
four minutes, which is, after allowing the least possible 
time for changing Horses, twenty miles an hour for eleven 
hours, and on the turnpike road and uneven ground. 
Mr. Shaftoe, in 1762, with ten Horses, and five of them 
ridden twice, accomplished fifty miles and a quarter, in 
one hour and forty-nine minutes. In 1763, Mr. Shaftoe 
won a more extraordinary match. He was to procure a 
person to ride one hundred miles a day, on any one Horse 
each day, for twenty-nine days together, and to have any 
number of Horses not exceeding twenty -nine. He accom- 
plished it on fourteen Horses, and on one day he rode one 
hundred and sixty miles, on account of the tiring of his 
first Horse. 
Mr. Hull’s Quibbler, however, afforded the most extra- 
ordinary instance on record, of the stoutness as well as 
speed of the Race Horse. In December, 1786, he ran 
twenty-three miles round the fiat at Newmarket, in fifty- 
seven minutes and ten seconds. 
Eclipse. ( English . ) 
Eclipse was got by Marsk, a grandson of Bartlett’s 
Childers. 
Of the beauty, yet peculiarity of his form, much has 
been said. The very great size, obliquity, and lowness of 
his shoulders, were the objects of general remark — with 
the shortness of his fore-quarters, his ample and finely 
proportioned quarters, and the swelling muscles of his 
fore-arm and thigh. Of his speed, no correct estimate 
can be formed, for he never met with an opponent suffi- 
ciently fleet to put it to the test. 
He was bred by the Duke of Cumberland, and sold at 
his death to Mr. Wildman, a sheep salesman, for seventy- 
five guineas. Colonel O’Kelly purchased a share of him 
from Wildman. In the spring of the following year, 
when the reputation of this wonderful animal was at its 
height, O’Kelly wished to become sole owner of him, and 
bought the remaining share for one thousand pounds. 
Eclipse was what is termed a thick-winded Horse, and 
puffed and roared so as to be heard at a considerable dis- 
tance. For this or some other cause, he was not brought 
on the Turf until he was five years old. 
O’Kelly, aware of his Horse’s powers, had backed him 
freely on his first race in May, 1769. This excited cu- 
riosity, or perhaps, roused suspicion, and some persons 
attempted to watch one of his trials. Mr. John Lawrence 
says, that “ they were a little too late; but they found an 
old woman who gave them all the information they want- 
ed. On inquiring whether she had seen a race, she replied, 
that “ she could not tell whether it was a race or not, but 
that she had just seen a Horse with white legs running 
away at a monstrous rate, and another Horse a great way 
behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he never 
would catch the white-legged Horse if he ran to the 
world’s end. 
The first heat was easily won, when O’Kelly, observing 
that the rider had been pulling at Eclipse during the whole 
of the race, offered a wager that he placed the Horses in 
the next heat. This seemed a thing so highly improbable, 
that he immediately had bets to a large amount. Being 
called on to declare, he replied, “ Eclipse first, and the 
rest no where!” The event justified his prediction: all 
the others were distanced by Eclipse with the greatest 
ease; or, in the language of the Turf, they had no place. 
In the spring of the following year, he beat Mr. Went- 
worth’s Bucephalus, wffio had never before been con- 
quered. Two days afterwards he distanced Mr. Strode’s 
Pensioner, a very good Horse: and, in the August of the 
same year, he won the great subscription at York. No 
Horse daring to enter against him, he closed his short ca- 
reer of seventeen months, by walking over the Newmar- 
ket course for the king’s plate, on October the 18th, 1770. 
He was never beaten, nor ever paid forfeit, and won for 
his owner more than twenty-five thousand pounds.” 
American Eclipse,* 
“ Is a chesnut Horse, with a star, and the near hind 
foot white; 15 hands 3 inches high; possessing a large 
share of bone and muscle, and excelling all the Racers of 
the day in the three great essentials of speed — stoutness or 
lastingness, and ability to carry weight. He was foaled 
on the 25th of May, 1814, at Dusoris, Long Island, on the 
farm of the late Gen. Nathaniel Coles. At five months 
old, while a suckling, he gave his owner such a sample of 
stride, strength, and speed, that he was at that time named 
‘American Eclipse.’ He was sired by Duroc; his dam 
Miller’s Damsel, by Messenger; his grandam the English 
mare Pot8os, imported in 1795, then three years old, by 
William Constable, Esq. and bred by Lord Grosvenor; 
sired by PotSos, and PotSos by the celebrated Horse 
‘Eclipse,’ — his g. g. dam by Gimcrack; Gimcrack by 
Cripple, and Cripple by the Arabian of Lord Godolphin. 
* Extracted from the American Turf Register. 
