Eclipse by Nicholas Clee

whether his owner, William III, first called him that. Queen Anne suffered the indignity of seeing her horse Pepper finish behind an opponent called Sturdy Lump. The names of foundation sires and mares were often strikingly descriptive: Old Bald Peg, in reference to white markings; and, indicating reddish tints, the BloodyShouldered Arabian and the Bloody Buttocks Arabian. Some owners and breeders went for irony, choosing names that they hoped their horses would belie in performance. There was Slouch, among the runners-up at Winchester; later, Eclipse would compete against Tortoise. At Lichfield on 19 September, he faced Tardy. The result: Eclipse’s fifth King’s Plate of the season; odds: 1-7. He was undefeated in nine races, and it was time for his winter break. At last, he was allowed to rest from daily gallops, and to enjoy the freedom of a paddock. He would pick up the routine again the following February.
    Some time over the winter, or possibly after Eclipse’s first race in the spring of 1770, Dennis O’Kelly fulfilled the ambition he had cherished since first catching sight of the chestnut with a white blaze scorchingacross the Epsom Downs: he bought Eclipse outright, taking ownership of the three and a half legs still in Wildman’s possession – or whatever Wildman’s outstanding share was – for a sum generally agreed to have been 1, 100 guineas; he also appropriated Wildman’s racing colours of red with black cap. Eclipse moved the seven miles from Mickleham to Dennis’s new Epsom stables in Clay Hill.
    Another story, plausible in its portrayal of Dennis but hard to believe in this context, is that Wildman and Dennis gambled over the share. Dennis put two £1, 000 notes in one pocket, and one £1, 000 note in another, and invited Wildman to choose. Wildman plumped for the pocket with the single £1, 000.Would Dennis have risked arousing ill feeling over this important transaction? Perhaps. A less hypothetical question is this: why did Wildman sell a horse who was clearly a superstar? One theory is that there may have been threats to ‘nobble’ Eclipse. In fact, Wildman would not have had to receive specific threats to be aware that his champion was at risk: villains were known to break into stables and dose horses with opium; one poor horse died after being fed balls consisting of duck shot. You can see why Wildman may have decided that Dennis and his associates were the men to handle such difficulties.
    But there is a pattern to Wildman’s bloodstock transactions. His ambition and astuteness led him to acquire fine horses, and his caution prompted him to offload them as soon as they showed their worth. He might have earned a lot more money if he had held on to Gimcrack, his first outstanding racer. He was starting to earn good money from Marske, Eclipse’s sire; but a few years later, before Marske’s market value had reached its peak, Wildman would sell him too. And he might have earned a small fortune, as well as a more prominent role in racing history, if he had not sold Eclipse to Dennis O’Kelly.
    After his legendary debut at the 3 May 1769 Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Plate at Epsom, Eclipse never raced again at his homecourse. In April 1770, at the beginning of his second season, 68 he had more prestigious dates on his schedule. Newmarket, ninety miles to the north-east in East Anglia, hosted a spring meeting that occupied the sporting set, as well as those who visited the town merely for the society, for a week at the end of April. You needed to be there, even if you did not care for racing. Horace Walpole, with magnificently languid insouciance, declared, ‘Though … [I] have been 50 times in my life at Newmarket, and have passed through it at the time of the races, I never before saw a complete one. I once went from Cambridge on purpose, saw the beginning, was tired and went away.’
    Eclipse made the five-day journey to