O’Kelly, aware of his horse’s powers, backed him freely on his first race in 1769. This excited curiosity among sporting men; they thought the colonel must have had some extraordinary reason for betting largely on a horse that no one had ever heard of before, and that had not given any public proof of his powers. Some persons, accordingly, tried to watch one of his trials; which the owner, no doubt, wished to keep as secret as possible. They were a little too late on the ground; but they found an old woman, who gave them all the information they wanted. On their inquiring, whether she had seen a race, she replied, she could not tell whether it was a race or not, but she had just seen a horse with a white leg running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, a great way behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he would never catch the white-legged horse if he ran to the world’s end. The first heat was easily won, when O’Kelly, observing that the rider had been pulling at Eclipse during the whole of the race, offered a wager that he would _place_ the horses in the next heat (that is, that he would name the order in which they would be when the foremost reached the winning post). This seemed a thing so highly improbable that he immediately had bets to a large amount. Being called on to declare, he replied—“Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere!” The event justified his prediction; for all the others were _distanced_ by Eclipse with the greatest ease (that is, he was at the winning post before they had reached another 240 yards behind it, called the distancing post), and thus, in the language of the turf, they had no place. The pecuniary value of Eclipse and his progeny must have been something enormous. He was the sire of 354 winners, and these netted to their owners more than £160,000, exclusive of plates and cups. Ten years after he was withdrawn from the turf; O’Kelly was asked at what price he would sell him. At first he peremptorily refused to accept any price; but after some reflection, he said he would take £25,000, with an annuity of £500, besides certain privileges. The seeming extravagance of this sum excited considerable remark, but O’Kelly declared he had already cleared more than £25,000 by Eclipse, and that the animal was still young enough to earn double that sum.