Walking or cantering down an incline, shut but your eyes, and you were unable to tell by bodily sensation whether you were on level ground or otherwise. He 'pulled up' in a way different from any other horse. Apparently, he put out his legs, and, lo! you were again at a walk. No prop, shake, or jar was perceptible. It was a magical transformation. An invalid recovering from a fever could have ridden him a day's journey. No one could fall off him in fact.
He who had no peer was born
amid the green forest parks of Trawalla, at no great distance from Buninyong, or the historic goldfield of Ballarat.
His sire, Cornborough, than whom no better horse ever left England, was a brown horse, like The Premier and Rory O'More; like them, middle-sized, symmetrical rather than powerful. Among the early cracks that owed their speed and courage to him were Cornet, Bessie Bedlam, Beeswing, Ballarat, The Margravine (dam of Lord Clyde), with many others, now half forgotten. Cornet was, I think, the first of his progeny trained. He ran away with most of the two-year-old stakes of the day, to be ever after known as a fast horse and a good stayer. I remember his beating Macknight's St. George at Port Fairy, in a match for £100, and winning various other stakes and prizes. His half-sister, Mr. Austin's Bessie Bedlam, was one of the most beautiful race-horses ever saddled. I well remember her running in old days, and can see her now, stepping along daintily with her head up, like an antelope. She won many a race, and was successful as a stud matron after turf triumphs were over. Beeswing was also good, but not equal to her. Ballarat was a great raking, handsome chestnut mare, bred by Dick Scott, a stock-rider of Mr. Goldsmith's. She must have had a good turn of speed, inasmuch as she won the All-aged Stakes in Melbourne, as a three-year old. The Cornboroughs, like the Premiers, were remarkable for their temperate dispositions. They had abundance of courage, but no tendency to vice of any kind.
On his dam's side Dermot boasted Peter Fin (Imp) as grandsire, and other good running blood. His pedigree was incomplete, thus leaving him open to a suspicion of being not quite thoroughbred. But the stain—the 'blot on the scutcheon,' if such there was—showed neither by outward sign nor inward quality.
Then, as to paces. He walked magnificently, holding up his head in a lofty and dignified manner; his mouth of the lightest—velvet to any touch of bit—but withal firm. He had always been ridden with a double bridle, and showed no provincial distaste to bit and bridoon. If required to quicken his pace from a fast but true walk, he could adopt a rapid amble, so causing any ordinary stepper to trot briskly. And then his canter—how shall I describe it? Springy, long-striding, yet floating, improving his speed at will to a hand-gallop if you merely shook the reins, and as readily, smoothly subsiding at the lightest sustained pull.
With such a horse under you it seemed as if one could go on for ever. Mile after mile fled away, and still there was no abatement in the wonderful living mechanism of which the spring and elasticity seemed exhaustless. The sensation was so exquisite that you dreaded to terminate it. When at length you drew rein, it was, so to speak, with the tears in your eyes.
Then the safety of this miraculous performance. You were on a horse that never was known to shy or bolt, and that could not fall down. Nature had otherwise provided. With such a balance of forehand, he may have at rare intervals struck his hoof against root or stone, clod or other obstacle, but trip, blunder, fall—these were words and deeds wholly outside of his being. With legs of iron, and hoofs that matched them well, never once did I know Dermot to be lame during all the years of our acquaintance.
Fortunately for me, and for society generally, he was not quite fast enough for promotion to a racing stable. He was thus enabled to elude the turf dangers and so pass his life in a sphere where he was loved and respected as he deserved.
With regard to his stamina. I rode him a distance of seventy miles one day, being anxious to get home, during the last ten miles of which he waltzed along with precisely the same air and manner as in the morning—with thirteen stone up, too. In addition to other qualities, he was an uncommonly good feeder: would clear his rack conscientiously, and eat all the oats you would give him. I never knew him to be tired, or met any one that had heard of his being seen in that condition.