THREE-YEAR-OLDS. 165 



have won, so as to allow other of the examinees to canter first 

 past the post ; a trick which has caused the boiling over of as 

 many pots as any process we could mention. 



What you see with your eyes in racing you may have 

 some faint hope may prove to be true; but, for sheer vanity 

 and vexation of spirit, commend us to the conflicting accounts 

 of jockeys after a 'hugger-mugger' trial. 



Matthew Dawson's system has always been to try a three - 

 year-old at less than the accepted w^eight for age with a good 

 old one, this being in his opinion the only way to make tole- 

 rably sure of winning a big race. 



An instance of very much less than weight for age was 

 when he tried Queen's Messenger for the Derby of 1872 at even 

 weights with Kingcraft, and the young one won easily. It is true 

 that Kingcraft was not a very good horse, was in fact a moderate 

 one. Still he w^as then five years old, and he had won the 

 Derby two years previously ; also he must have been in form, 

 or they would not have tried with him at all. This appears on 

 paper a stupendous performance, yet the sequel proved that it 

 was not good enough, for there were a couple of giants going 

 about in those days in the shape of Cremorne and Prince 

 Charlie, both of whom beat Queen's Messenger in the Two 

 Thousand, and, though he had his revenge on the roarer in the 

 Derby, Cremorne repeated the dose. Pell Mell's second may 

 be regarded as one of those flukes by which indifferent horses 

 sometimes get placed in good company ; for Khedive, who gave 

 him 7 lbs. at Ascot on the Old Mile, and beat him a neck, was 

 at best only a second-class horse. 



Lord Falmouth's second Derby winner Silvio was tried in 

 the spring of 1877 at 11 lbs., one mile and a half, with a good 

 four-year, Skylark, who had during the previous year met 

 eleven of his engagements and carried off six of them. They 

 started a quarter of a mile beyond the ditch gap, finished at 

 the Rowley Mile stand, and Silvio won cleverly; yet it was some 

 time before he confirmed this form in pubhc, for starting a 

 hot favourite in the Craven Biennial he was beaten off by a 



