Yes, Gay decided _that_ was her favourite day, when the sweetest and loveliest lady in all the land, sat with the King in the Royal box, and frankly showed her love for horses by the delight she evinced in their performances, and the frequent applause she gave them, laughing as heartily as Gay did, at the humours of the donkeys in the coster's show. As if in answer to Tom Bulteel's pertinent remark that the saddle classes could not be satisfactorily judged, unless the judges took a turn in the saddle, one of them, himself a consummate horseman, rode the chargers in turn to judge of their capacities, and the public applauded loudly when he mounted Rensslaer's bay roan gelding, a charger so perfectly trained in the pretty action and deportment of the _Haute École_, that it performed a step-dance with all the precision possible in a creature with four legs. Gay declared that horses, like children, have an inborn tendency to dance to the sound of music--_not_ horses trained to the _Haute École_ either--and that in their grace and tapering limbs, they made her think of some exquisite exponents of the ballet, as compared with the unwieldy bodies and heavy legs of ordinary clumsy human beings. It interested Gay to watch these men, the keenest judges of horse-flesh, and riding and driving in the world, who chatted quietly, nodded appreciatively now and then, criticised, admired, condemned, evincing no concern when a frightened horse scattered them to right and left. She was greatly amused at a big, striding bay horse named "Teetotaler" that, though built on galloping lines, proved himself inferior to "Whisky," who made short work of his opponent in the 15 stone class; then there was a Belgian horse named "Timber-topper" that thoroughly lived up to his name. Tom Bulteel found much to admire in the horse and gig class, a purely American affair, that being rather a novelty in this country, was greatly approved, but laughed heartily when, in a four-in-hand class, the coachman had to have assistance to turn his leaders in the ring. He naturally took keen interest in the park teams, which, supported by the Four-in-hand and Coaching Clubs, by private individuals and professionals, ensured the judging being watched with the closest attention. Then there were Mr. Vanderbilt's famous team of greys, which he drove himself, though it was only by a shade that he wrested the prize from the well-known browns of the Old Brighton Coach--an English turn-out that gradually absorbed most of the audience's attention, and whose driver, though he lost the blue rosette, was greeted with loud and prolonged applause. "Where is your motor-car now?" cried Gay triumphantly to Lossie. "Talk of a chauffeur indeed--as if his finest, most daring and sustained feat, could rival the sympathetic dexterity shown a hundred times here by English and American whips!"