ECLIPSE. 
461 
ally six mares, which ol course was rejected. Mr. O'Kelly 
said he had cleared by this horse twenty-five thousand 
pounds, and his statement is supposed to be correct. 
Eclipse was allowed to be the fleetest horse that ever ran 
in England, since the time of Childers. After winning 
king’s plates, and other prizes, to a great extent, he was 
kept as a stallion, and gained to his owner, for forty mares, 
the great sum of thirty guineas each. 
This fine horse seemed to combine all the qualities which 
constitute an excellent racer: his stoutness, form, and 
action were excellent. He had a vast stride, and certainly 
never horse threw his haunches below him with more vigour 
or effect; and his hind legs were so spread in his gallop, 
“that a wheelbarrow might have been driven between 
them ; ” his agility was great, and his speed extraordinary, 
but we cannot estimate it justly, as no horse of his day 
could be compared with him. The only contemporary 
which was supposed at all equal to him was Mr. Shaftoe s 
famous horse Goldfinder. He was never beaten, and was to 
have been matched against Eclipse, for the king’s plates, on 
the following year, but he broke down at Newmarket in the 
October meeting. 
Eclipse won eleven king’s plates, in ten of which he 
carried twelve stone, and in the other ten. It was calcu¬ 
lated, that within the course of twenty-three years, three 
hundred and forty-four winners, the progeny of this animaL 
produced to their owners the enormous sum of £158,071. 12s 
sterling, exclusive of various prizes. The prevailing excel¬ 
lence of all the progeny of this horse was great speed, and 
they took up their feet in the gallop with wonderful acti¬ 
vity. They were not, however, generally famed for stout¬ 
ness , but, almost all of them were horses of fine temper, 
seldom or never betraying restifhess. 
2 a 
