Only a few years after the publication of the “History and Art of Horsemanship” a determined attempt was made to suppress, once and for all time, the practices referred to. For a while public interest was greatly stirred, and it seemed as though the practices would at last be put an end to by direct legislation, but eventually undue influence was brought to bear, and nothing was done. Indeed, as most of us must have noticed, the practice of docking the tails of nearly all horses except race horses is so prevalent at the present time that in many instances the tails are cut to within a few inches of the root, while some of our ultra “fashionable” horse dealers go so far as to pluck out most of the hairs left on the stump. In the west of England the latter trick is indulged in more often than in the northern counties or the midlands. * * * * * Of all the famous sires whose names stand out as household words in the annals of the horse in history, but few bear comparison with the world-renowned Eclipse. [Illustration: MR. O'KELLY'S ECLIPSE, THE MOST FAMOUS THOROUGHBRED STALLION EVER FOALED 1764 _After the painting by G. Stubbs_] Bred, as already mentioned, by the Duke of Cumberland, he took his name from the coincidence that the great eclipse of 1764 was in progress at the very hour of his birth. There does not seem to have been anything particularly striking about the foal's appearance, and certainly none imagined for a moment that he would be likely to grow into one of the most famous horses, if not the most famous horse, the Turf has ever known. Until the age of five, Eclipse was not run in public, but from the time he won his first race, in May 1769, until his last appearance upon the Turf, in October 1770, he was never beaten, or near being beaten. The long list of his triumphs need not be given here, but Mr Theodore Cook reminds us in his exhaustive work upon this horse that it was Dennis O'Kelly's son of Eclipse that won the second Derby, and that out of 127 races, including the first, Eclipse's descendants had down to the year 1906 furnished no fewer than eighty-two winners. Eclipse himself was sold as a yearling for less than 100 guineas. Of his direct descendants, a yearling filly was bought not very long ago for 10,000 guineas; a race horse in training has fetched £39,375 at public auction; two sires have each produced stock that has won over half-a-million sterling; and other horses tracing back to him in the direct male line have won the “Triple Crown” nine times out of ten and hold the record for the pace at which the Two-Thousand, the Derby and the Leger have been run. Upon one point all trustworthy authorities on thoroughbreds and their performances, also the principal historians of the Turf, and in addition the leading “turfites” of our own period, are in agreement, and that is that since the time of Flying Childers the Turf, the world over, has not known a horse faster than Eclipse was.