(Colonel Cook's country), he must have seen such foxes that no hounds on earth could tackle without the assistance of a good man cook at home. Stouter foxes England does not produce. If any one doubt the assertion, let them inquire at the kennels of Lord Petre and of Messrs. Conyers and Newman and though last, not least as a judge in the business, let them ask ould Tom Rose, the Duke of Grafton's huntsman. No, Mr. Editor, foxes were found, hunted, and killed in the gallant Colonel's time, and before it, in as good stile as they are now: and here again I take my stand, to prove that hounds not only required as good feeding twenty or thirty years ago as they do now, but that they had it. Horses may be changed, hounds may be changed, and even man himself, we are every day told, has undergone no inconsiderable alteration since the period I have alluded to; but, thanks to Providence! foxes remain the same. I shudder to think of the devils we should meet with in hunting, if man had been suffered to try his improvements upon them. RINGWOOD.

to fulfil an old promise I made, in one of my earlier Letters on the Turf, to give your readers some further particulars of the race horse and stallion Spectre, of which I am reminded by your notice, in this month's Magazine, of his owner, Mr. Bodenham's sale.

The dam of Spectre, Fillikins, by Gouty, dam by King Fergus Herod, great grandam by Blank, was drafted out of the Hampton Court stud in 1814, and was purchased, at the pressing instance of Sir E. Howorth, by Mr. Bodenham, a gentleman farmer in Radnorshire, at what one now would call the trifling price of thirty pounds (being at that time in foal to Phantom); but which, putting her excellent pedigree out of the question, I never saw a mare less promising to breed from, except one, and that was the late Lord Maynard's Gin, whom she much resembled-short, punchy, and hacklooking, and stone-blind in both eyes into the bargain. This very mare, at twenty-three years old, was bought in at nearly two hundred pounds, when no more than two foals could hardly be expected from her, besides the mine of wealth she has been in her first produce alone to her worthy owner.

What Mr. Bodenham meant to do with his colt at first is very uncertain; but at three years old he might have been bought for one hundred guineas-at least before he first started. His first race was for the Maiden Plate at Tenbury, which he started for, and won, to the great delight of the farmers around, and great surprise of all who knew any thing about racingbeing fat as a bull-not in train. ing, and hardly even broke-a few brushing gallops only by his groom forming his preparation to stare,

against bad horses indeed, but who were in regular condition. He was now put into regular work; but his not being properly got straight before hand was much against him, and sore shins were the natural consequence, particularly after a severe race over Ludlow with the King of Diamonds, whom he fairly beat the first heat, if the judge could only have made use of his own eyes to see with, and not those of Mr. Terrett's, who was standing behind him and backing the old horse.

It has been asserted, and generally credited, that Spectre was not well trained; and, when he was advertised as a stallion, his owner rather encouraged the report by way of enhancing his horse's pretensions. As an impartial man, having heard all sides, I must say he was better trained by Mr. Patrick than he would have been in nine public training stables out of ten; and from the way horses are worked in many of them, he would have been broken down before he was four years old. Mr. J. Pa trick, under whose care Spectre was placed, soon after or about the time of Ludlow races, 1818, was one of the sons of a wealthy yeoman of Salop, who had always had a great turn for training horses, and who would make light of riding thirty miles to see a horse sweat. This young man, not having been regularly brought up in a training stable, had one advantage-he could have imbibed none of their prejudices; and patient study and observation, aided by plain good sense, did the rest. A stable was taken at a place called Richard's Castle, somewhere between Ludlow and Wigmore, in Herefordshire, where there is excellent training ground for a small num

ber of race-horses, and Spectre came there, under the superintendence of Mr. Patrick, in whom, as a personal friend, Mr. Bodenham had implicit confidence.

Having the following year met Mr. P. at a relation's house, I was induced to question him largely as to the manner in which he trained his horse; and his observations seem so just, and so fully bear me out in what I advanced in my "Thoughts on Training the Race-horse," in vol. xv. p. 98, that I cannot pass over them in silence. He said, "When he first had him in hand, he was loaded with fat, and, from being hard worked without previous preparations, his legs appeared rather doubtful: that, also, he was one of those hardy well-doing horses, that if not asleep he was eating, and on that account a very difficult horse to keep in his proper place: that, in consequence of this, his plan was to keep the horse out much longer than is usual in most training stables, never beginning to gallop till he had been walking a considerable time, and making his gallops rather longer, but much slower, than usually was the case: and that, in regard to sweats, they should be frequent but very slow, and never less than four miles, sometimes five, when near running." That this plan answered was proved by the evident improvements in the colt's appearance at Worcester, where, prettily rode by Harry Arthur, he won the 501. Plate the last day.

The night before, Harry bid 250 for the horse for T. R. Price, Esq. of North Wales, who has now and then a nag at Chester; but 50gs. only parted them-I dare say much to Mr. Price's chagrin afterwards. His beating,

at Leicester, a colt who had run second for the Craven and to Interpreter for the 2000gs. at Newmarket, besides making a good race the next day against Rhoda, together with his winning again at Hollowell, got his name up; and Sir E. Howorth, in consequence, prevailed on his master to send the horse to Newmarket, and to let him remain in the second class of the Oatlands. For this he did not start, having had a violent at tack of the Distemper; so that what Mr. J. Perren's training would have done for the horse remains unknown. Mr. Bodenham, however, did not seem particularly satisfied; and when his horse went the following year to Newmarket, Mr. Patrick went with him.

I shall not detain your readers in going too minutely into the very brilliant performances of Spectre in the years 1819 and 1820, as they may refer to the Calendars of those years: but there is one circumstance that appears most remarkable; and that is, his being second for almost all his first races in the week, and then winning against the same or better horses the next, or following day. That he was run to win both times, there can be no doubt of; and his being beaten must thus be accounted for. He most probably, on leaving his regular training stables, was just fit to run; but, with a gross, easy-tempered horse, two or three days on the road will undo weeks of training. Such was Spectre's case; and the very severe races he had to run the first time acted upon him as a sweat. In the Craven Stakes, at Newmarket 1820, where he was beat by Antar and Boniface, he laboured under strong disadvantages. In the first place, Chapple, who rode him,

though a fair country performer, was timid and nervous, not accustomed to the ground, which is the most difficult of all others--a wide open heath, without those regular tracks a jockey has to guide himself by elsewhere-and pitted against the best riders in England on ground they know every inch of. In the next place, he required being better set than any horse in the race, and was perhaps the worst. There is great art in putting on the setting muzzles the night before running; and in nothing do the Newmarket trainers excel more. The late Mr. Prince was particularly famous for it; and he has been carried to the stable in a chair, when the gout prevented his go ing on foot, to put the setting muz zle on. In the Houghton Meeting 1817, Mr. Prince persuaded Mr. Goddard (having been beaten on Thursday with Bobadil, by So vereign) to make the match over again, same weights and dis tance; and Bobadil was sent to Mr. Prince's stables only the night before, and for that night only. Whether it was Prince's superior setting or not, certain it is Bobadil ran a much better race, which ended in a dead heat.

But to return to Spectre. It is the pace that kills; and, when over a severe course, such as Cheltenham, a race is very severely run through from end to end, every pound above racing weights tells heavily. Spec tre, in the Great Gloucestershire Stakes, carried 9st. 6lb. as a fiveyear-old, being 10lb. above the usual weights for the year. This did not prevent his winning cleverly; but he was pulled up all but lame. The Gold Cup there, and also that at Warwick, were wisely given up running for: he

was got round gradually, and succeeded, after three attempts, in winning the Mostyn Stakes at Hollowell in October, beating a very good field.

It had been better for the credit of all parties, as it turned out, had Spectre's public career as a race horse ended with that year; and as he was taken out of training, few people thought much of his again appearing. This way, of sometimes taking a horse out of training, and then beginning over again, is not only a waste of time, but frequent ly has spoilt an otherwise excellent nag. I may here be asked, if I would never, in the whole course of the race-horse's career, give his legs any rest? I answer, yes: but I would never sacrifice that condition which I had been labouring to produce for months, for years perhaps, to indulge improperly a horse's legs for a few weeks; knowing that, if I am pressed for time, I must give those legs extra work to get down the extra load of flesh produced by idleness. A horse may, and ought to be, indulged in his work during the winter (the frost and snow on the ground will give him many a holiday): but all this may be done without turning a horse out of training.

In March 1821, I was in want of something clever to come in as a second horse to ride during the summer, and hunt with the harriers afterwards. I was recommended to ride over to Stapleton Castle, near Presteigne, to look at a very clever chesnut mare, by Rubens, out of a Guilford Mare-her price fifty guineas. From her size, and being a very well-leapt mare, I was on the point of buying her; but was fool enough to take another's advice, and decline the purchase. Six months after, Lord Exeter

gave two hundred and fifty guineas for this very mare, taking Zealot, who was out of her, at the same time. She was own sister to the dam of Augusta.

While I was looking at the blood stock in the paddocks, Spectre, with his groom on him, came in. He was just beginning to get into work, fat as butter, not even in common hunting condition. Knowing it wanted only seven weeks to Chester, all prospect of his winning, against such good horses in high condition as are always met with there, vanished from my mind. Trusting, however, to his running himself into condition, I afford to back him against Dr. Syntax for the Preston Cup, should he go there. In his first race, though backed at even against the field, he was not even placed; and for the Cup he was second. Torrelli (the favorite) and Spectre were watching_one another, and thus suffered Tom Nicholson on Tarragon to give them the slip just on the post.

Such, I believe, was the true case. Spectre, though it was impossible for him to be in his highest form, ran a good horse, and to win; but the clamour that arose at their favorite's defeat, among the country party, who had so stoutly supported Mr. Bodenham's horses, was loud, and many did not hesitate in saying it was a regular throw over. Matters were mended when, at Cheltenham, that big brute, Claudius by Camillus, was lifted past Spectre for the Cheltenham Cup. As to a comparison as to the goodness of the horses, there was none. Chapple seemed bothered, and to have forgotten where he was, by not making his run till too late. Parties ran so high, that when Spectre

not

was to run at Ludlow for the Allaged Stakes on the second day, it was thought advisable to put up Harry Arthur instead of his old rider Chapple; and, what is more, he rode in an orange jacket instead of Mr. Bodenham's usual colour. Having heard so much against what had been done with the horse both at Chester and Cheltenham, I took very particular notice of him before starting. Poor fellow! he was sadly altered for the worse; I should hardly have known him any where else. His legs were bunged and puffed, like those of an over-worked poster; his coat staring and pricked, and drawn very thin-the very reverse of what he appeared the year previous on the same ground. He fell gloriously and if ever a horse (out of all condition) did shew great speed and determined stoutness, Spectre shewed it on that day. The Main, rode with uncommon steadiness by Spencer, took the lead, making very strong running from end to end. At the second time passing the Grand Stand, Spectre appeared full of running, and decidedly looking the winner. On descending the hill, about a mile and a half from home, he seemed to falter, and was all but down. The sinews of his off-fore leg gave way: and such an advantage had the other horses by this stoppage, as to make it even betting at a mile from home Spectre was distanced. He, however, actually came up to his horses, round the turn, like a shot; and, had the race ended at the distance post, he would have won easy. Nature at length could hold no longer, and he was beat off on three legs only, rather easy at the last. What made the finish most painful to the eyes of every humane VOL. XX. N. S.-No. 116.

man present, he was actually flogged in, long after it was perfectly useless. When pulled up, my heart bled to see him: he could not put his foot to the ground; and, near as the stables are to the Course, a considerable time elapsed before he could reach them, and some weeks elapsed before he came home. This finished his racing career; and never did a beaten cock (as we say on the sod) ever break up half so game as Spectre. In justice to Harry Arthur, who is by no means a cruel jockey, on being asked by some gentlemen in the evening why he used the whip apparently so wantonly? he said, if he had not done so, half the people would have said the race was lost on purpose. The real cause was, his not having been taken soon enough up: he was hurried in his work; and, to get rid of the load of flesh he had on, his legs were sacrificed.

There was some idea of his co

vering the first year at Ludford but so many mares were promised, that Mr. Bodenham kept his horse at home; and capital seasons he has had since. has had since. Charles Day, of Northleach, sent the first year his best mares to him-Zuleika and Snowdrop. In his blood he has a double cross of the Sir Peterwhich seems always to answer with his sire Phantom-whom he closely resembled when in training; and there are few mares where his blood would not cross well. He possessed two qualities rarely combined-great speed and superior stoutness; and such was his per, fect symmetry, and so true his action, that weight never appeared to tell upon him as it did on other horses.

The accommodations for mares at Stapleton are on the best scale,

E