Figg and Broughton, the prize-fighters, and also
a great friend of horse-racing, died, by no means
much regretted, in 1765, and, on his death,
Eclipse was sold with the rest of the stud. The
unpretending colt, with the white off hind leg
and the long white blaze, was knocked down in
Smithfield for seventy guineas. Mr. Wildman,
the salesman, who kept a good stud of
racehorses at Mickleham, near Dorking, and also
took in horses to train, had expressed a wish
to buy Eclipse; some groom or jockey, with an
eye to the colt, so short in the forehand and so
high in the hips, had, in fact, given a hint of
his promise, and Wildman was anxious to carry
him off. The ivory hammer had already fallen
before the tardy buyer made his appearance.
The purchaser of the chestnut colt eyed him
wilh scornful triumph; not that Eclipse was
worth much, but then he had " nicked" that
sharp fellow, Wildman, who always thought he
was up to everything. But Wildman was
Yorkshire too, and hard, very hard to get round. He
took out his watch, and pronounced the recent
sale illegal. The hour of sale that had been
fixed in the advertisement had not yet arrived
by several minutes. The lot knocked down
must be re-sold, or there would be pickings
for the lawyers out of the matter. The
auctioneer sulkily confesses the error; the sullen
purchaser yields, too, per force. The chesnut
yearling is put up again. Eventually Eclipse
is knocked down, amid the amusement of his
friends, to Mr. Wildman, the acute and the
pertinacious, for seventy-five guineas.

The Godolphin Arabian, sent as a present to
Louis the Fourteenth by the Emperor of
Morocco was so little thought of that it was sold to
a man who drove it about Paris in a cart, and
from the cart this fallen monarch of the desert
was taken by the English gentleman who bought
it. In youth, Eclipse was equally despised, and
his genius as cruelly ignored. His temper was
certainly bad; he bit, and kicked, and jibbed,
and shied, and struck out like a boxer with his
fore legs. In various other uncomfortable ways
he tried to proclaim his irresistible courage,
daring, speed, and endurance. At one time,
vexed and distracted, Mr. Wildman thought it
would be impossible to bring him to the post
except as a gelding, his spirit was so fiery and
unquenchable. At last, in a rage, Wildman put
him into the not very gentle hands of a poaching
roughrider near Epsom, who rode him about
all day from stable to stable, and at night took
him to the cover-side, or made him wait while
he smoked pheasants, or dragged stubbles for
partridges. Even the steel joints and india-
rubber muscles of Eclipse wearied of this
ceaseless drudgery, and he grew quieter and more
docile; but still the animal's lion heart was so
large, and throbbed with such a full hot flood
of generous blood, that his spirit remained
unbroken, and his favourite jockeys, Fitzpatrick
and Oakley, never attempted to hold him, but
sat patient and wondering in their saddles, flying
through the air till the horse stopped and
the earthquake of cheering began.

When Eclipse was four years old, Mr.
O' Kelly, a well-known man on the turf, gave
two hundred and fifty guineas for a half share in
him, and, soon after, seven hundred and fifty for
the remainder. He ran the next year at Epsom.

The Dennis O'Kelly who bought Eclipse was
an lrish adventurer—some said a sedan-chairman.
When he suddenly became a sort of Midas, at
whose touch everything turned into gold, envy
and cynicism wrote countless satires and
lampoons upon him, attributing his wealth to every
possible crime and baseness. He seems to have
been a rough, shrewd, reckless fellow, thoroughly
conscious of the power of his wealth, and
careless to conceal his triumph.

With an ignorant head, but skilful at
combinations and calculations, O'Kelly, nevertheless,
had his reverses; at one period of his life,
beggared at the green-cloth, he found his way into
the Fleet, and could not get easily out of it
again, till his mistress lent him her last hundred
pounds, and with that he slowly won back the
wandering guineas. Fortune was never tired
of favouring the noisy Irishman, who yet failed
to obtain the recognition of society, and could
not succeed in getting admission into the best
clubs, social or sporting. Being refused
admittance into the Jockey Club, he could never
run Eclipse for any of the great Newmarket
stakes—a source of perpetual mortification to the
blustering Irishman.

But honest or dishonest, thwarted by the
aristocracy or aided by rogues, O'Kelly did his
best to aid his steady friend, Fortune, by
shrewdness, sagacity, indefatigable industry, and
perseverance. No tricks could baffle him, no scheme
blind his keen eyes. He had both the rush and the
staying power of a good horse; he knew when
to " wait" on his adversaries, or when to spring
on them and pass them at the last length. In
fact, on the turf he was as invincible as Eclipse,
his bread-winner; horse and man, nothing could
come near them. To prevent his jockey's ever
being bought over, he always kept a favourite
rider, at an annual salary. This man was legally
pledged to ride for him, whenever ordered to do
so, for any plate, match, or sweepstake, but with
the privilege at odd times of riding for any other
person, if O'Kelly had no horse entered for the
same race. When he first made this contract,
and fixed on his jockey, he instantly acceded to
the rider's terms, and at once offered to double
them if the jockey would also bind himself under
a penalty never to ride for any of the black-legs.

The little man in boots, with perhaps no very
exalted idea of Captain O'Kelly's honour,
asked, with an incontrollable stare, whom he
called black-legs? The captain replied, with
a string of sonorous Anglo-Irish oaths:

"Oh, by the powers, my dear, I'll soon make
you understand whom I mean by the dirty
black-legs." With that preliminary assurance,
the Captain named all the chief members of the
Jockey Club of the day.

Such was the revenge of the man on those
who had shut their doors upon the owner of
Eclipse. O'Kelly usually carried a heap of