EARLY TRIALS 139 



autumn, when he was asked to give 21 lbs. to a two-year-old 

 filly by Scottish Chief out of Gong, the property of Sir A. de 

 Rothschild, and having done this easily by several lengths, he 

 was started for the Middle Park Plate, and installed second 

 favourite ; though the bookmakers astonished themselves and 

 their customers by the unusually liberal offer of 10 to i bar 

 one, Lollypop being a red-hot favourite at 2 to i. 



Petrarch, as all the world knows, won in a canter, and the 

 Mineral colt was nowhere, to the disgust of the Hayhoeites ; 

 for the Gong filly had, during the First October Meeting, 

 shown a little bit of form by beating Mr. Mitchell Innes's 

 Goddess in a small sweepstake over the last half-mile of the 

 B.C., and this she confirmed by running third to Kaleidoscope 

 and Enguerrande in the Prendergast. 



Accordingly Kisber was again tried with her on the same 

 terms, and repeated the dose as before, and in the Houghton 

 Meeting he rewarded his adherents for their faith by winning 

 the Dewhurst Plate, for which he started once more at the 

 remunerative price of 10 to i, beating besides ten others the 

 redoubtable Springfield, in whose two-year-old career a fluky 

 head defeat by Clanronald had been the sole previous reverse. 



It may be opportune here to contrast the modern with the 

 comparatively ancient system of trying young ones. In 1866 

 Mr. Sutton considered that a two-year-old filly had done an 

 extraordinary thing in private, because she had galloped away 

 from an old plater at 7 lbs. In 1879, Mr. R. Peck tried Bend 

 Or fully a stone better than Douranee, who was then in the 

 full swing of success and carrying all before her, and she won 

 the Exeter Stakes the day before Bend Or scored his maiden 

 victory in the Chesterfield Stakes in the Newmarket July week 

 He, as we all know, was never beaten as a two-year-old. 



Again in May 1885, before Saraband won his first race at 

 Kempton Park, Mr. Peck tried him better at even weights than 

 such a useful handicap horse as Modred, five-year-old, while 

 in the autumn of the same year, before the Middle Park Plate, 

 Saraband beat very easily at 10 lbs. Montroyd, who, at any rate 



