THE FAMOUS ECLIPSE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10233, 16 August 1911, Page 2

THE FAMOUS ECLIPSE.

ROMANCE OF A R A OF. HO ft RE. THE TURF IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. v The author of *' A History of the English Turf" lias completed a task which war, worth the patient work he besto'ved on it. Th« history of the most famous of all racehorses, " the greatest of hi:; sons since bom.'' needed to he written. It would have been worth writing as a matter of pure historical fact; for there were many doubts which were unsettled and many lacunae to be filled up, in connection with the records of ho r se breeding a hundred and fifty years ago. But, besides the missing parts of the story of horse breeding and racing, there was an opportunity of reconstructing a most interesting picture of the life of the sportloving society of the. period, when Eclipse first raced., and established his claim to he "first, and the rest no--j where," from that year to the present j day- . r The task of attempting the visualisation of the inannei's and the men of the latter half of the eighteenth century has occupied Mr Cook with ontluisiasm, find the result is some hciliiirable work. He lias perused figures and statistics with immense energy and thoroughness, not only in his sealch after pedigrees and tiny {lotnils of racing, but in his application of systems of minute measurement of every part- of representative horses. His figures will doubtless prove of great value to the biologist and the breeder; but the best part of the book has to do with the heroic horse and the men who saw liini race. . Eclipse was bom into a racing world of extraordinary vigour and brilliance. He was bred bv the Duke of Cumboi- ' land--" the Duke" of his time, the commander of the beaten but magnificent infantry of Foiitenoy, and the conqueror of Culloden. The Duke the first Royal member of the Jockey Club, • which, indeed, _wiis perhaps founded because of the interest taken by Royalty, and the Royal circle, in the national sport of horse-racing; which more than any other British sport has always needed defending asrainst- the influence of undesirables. The Duke was not himself a jockey, for his figure would hardly have, allotted that, but there were plenty ol members of the Jockey Club, when it was founded, who were exceptionally fine horsemen. " Old Q.," for instance, in his younger davs as Lord March, was a really scientific jockey, and other noble riders were the Duke of Hamilton and the Duke of Grafton.

Another enthusiastic racing man was Charles James Fox, who throw himself into the sport as whole-heartedly as lie gambled, drank, and made inspired speeches in the House of Commons. An episode of Fox's amazingly untiring race through life, reconstructed by Mr Cook from various sources, is excellently given. Fox had wagered something about a waistcoat, which could only be obtained in Paris. He went off to Dover by night, caught the mail packet, posted'to Paris, and back to Calais, and remembered he had a horse racing at Newmarket. He chartered a fishing boat bound for the eastern counties, just got to Newmarket in time for the race, took the post back to London, and stopped on the way to dine. In the middle of the port and dice after dinner he was caught by a special messenger who had been tearing over half England in search of him, and reminded that he had to move to bring in a Marriage Bill in the House of Commons. He rushed to the stables, reached the House in time to make a brilliant speech in reply to North and Burke, and defeated North on a division by a single vote. The real romance of racing of these years of feverish splendour centres in the horse himself. Eclipse did not belong to a member of the " smart set." When the Cumberland stud was sold in 1765, Eclipse was bought by a well-to-do meat salesman and grazier named Wildman, who eventually sold him to the Irishman who owned him throughout his career—Colonel Denis O'Kelly. The latter seems to have been a racing man " with a past," for lie was never admitted a member of the Jockey Club, though his nephew was elected when the Colonel died. How the uncle had off-ended is uncertain ; but what is certain is that in an age when there were at least temptations to run crookedly, O'Kelly ran his horse Eclipse absolutely fair and straight. Possibly, even had his jockey tried to pull the horso he might have failed to stop him. Nothing could live with the animal in a race. Only one horse, indeed, Bucephalus, is caid to have raced him for a short distance, and ho died of the effort.

Eclipse was so named because he was born in the year which, as Mr Cook describes it, there was a systematic disturbance of the heavenly bodies, and he certainly lived up to his name. He could almost invariably distance any horse that, ran against liim—that is, get home before the next- horse had passed the distance post, 210 yards from tho judge's box. His owner made history when ho laid a heavy wager that lie could place the first three horses in a heat in which Eclipse was runniiuz, and, the bet being taken, he prophesied —"Eclipse first-, and the rest nowhere "---tvliich was precisely what happened. How often the famous phrase is placed in a report of the race, instead of a prediction. But Eclipse, as a, fact, won very little- money, comparatively speaking, in actual pacing. He was' withdrawn from the fturf because his presence in a race discouraged other competitors, and was sent to the stud, where he made £20,000 for Colonel O'Kejly- an enormous Bum in those days, though little enough when compared with tho 10,000 guineas given for a- horse in training, find tho huge sums given today for a yearling, the C.'3!)..'!70 amounts which an owner of a successful racer can v;in in stako-moncy. Eclipse, by the way, neve!' won tho Derby, which was instituted after his time. Tiie highest stake lie won in a single race was 400 guineas, aiv:l he won only 21.49 guineas in all. "walking over " in nine races. Tie was, and lie remains, first and tho "est nowhere,. ,\inc out ol ten of the. best thoroughbreds of to-day are descended from him in direct tail 'male, and his nlood dominates the other lines of descent. There have been 128 races for the Derby, and Eclipse's descendants have won 83. Was there any single reason which can account lor this magnificent recordP Mr Cool; does not iix on one, though lie suggests many. H.i was a much bigger horse than tho majority oi his contemporaries, and i quesiions of size have led his biographer into some extremely abstruse and ingenious calculations, founded on carefully-taken measurements- though it should be noted that it is impossible to reason wholly satisfactorily from comparisons of measurements, for the leading authorities are not agreed as to methods of measuring. He that as it may, Mr Cook is as unfiling as lie is scholarly in his research. The simplest facts about hen-os remnin to be explained. he writes. Was Admiral Rous, for instance, right in asserting that thoroughbreds have increased in height an inch every twenty-five years since 1700 r' Docs height make- for pace? Or for endurance K Such (juestions are impossible to answer at present-.