'You never would think 'er a thoroughbred clinker,
There's never a judge that would;
Each leg be'ind 'as a splint, you'll find,
And the fore are none too good.
She roars a bit, and she don't look fit,
She's moulted 'alf 'er 'air;
But--' He smiled in a way that seemed to say,
That he knew that old gray mare.

And the bookies laughed and the bookies chaffed,
'Who backs the mare?' cried they.
'A hundred to one!' 'It's done--and done!'
'We'll take that price all day.'
'What if the mare is shedding hair!
What if her eye is wild!
We read her worth and her pedigree birth
In the smile that her owner smiled.'

And the whisper grew and the whisper flew
That she came of Isonomy stock.
'Fifty to one!' 'It's done--and done!
Look at her haunch and hock!
Ill-groomed! Why yes, but one may guess
That that is her owner's guile.'
Ah, Farmer Brown, the sharps from town,
Have read your simple smile!

They've weighed him in. 'Now lose or win,
I've money at stake this day;
Gee-long, my sweet, and if we're beat,