Under the Hammer

"They know the Prince won't ride them any more. Horses feel things like that just as the Prince feels parting with them."

Tom Russell, the stud groom of Edward of Wales's stable stood at one side of the straw-covered arena of the Leicester House Repository at Melton Mowbray in the heart of England's hunting country. Rain was drumming on the roof and a dozen policemen strove to hold back the crowd. Inside the rows of boxes around the ring were jammed to suffocation and smartly dressed women clung perilously to railings. The Prince of Wales's 12 hunters were being sold.

The Prince himself was there in a box directly behind the auctioneer's desk. The night before he had paid a surprise visit to the stable, stopped at each stall for a last look and pat. He lingered longest at the stall of Miss Muffet, his favorite hunter. Afterward he had stopped in at the local British Legion ball and danced with the wife of his stud groom, Tom.

Auctioneer C. W. Harrison climbed up behind his desk, rapped with his gavel. "We regret that His Royal Highness has had to relinquish the sport of which he was so fond," he began, "but we admire his patriotic action at a time when additional duties devolve upon him through the king's illness--it goes to the heart!"

Bidding began. Big-boned Miss Muffet went to a Captain Petry for $3,675. Degomme, which won the Guards point-to-point for the Prince, went for $1,730 to Victor Emanuel, a U. S. sportsman who hunts frequently at Melton Mowbray. Another American, Mrs. Adamson, who hunts with the Quorn, got a beautiful hunter, Lady Doon, for $1,750. One horse, Just an Idea, the Prince could not bear to part with, and it was withdrawn. The sale brought $20,000 in all, a ridiculous sum as U. S. prices go.