174 



RACING. 



of the Frenchman. However, a Derby trial was considered 

 necessary, and this is what happened : — 



One mile and a half. 



Giving 8 lbs. to the winner of the last year's Oaks, and they 

 laid 5 to 2 against him for the Derby. 



To each of these three trials is appended the same simple 

 comment — 'Won as he liked' — a chapter in four words. He 

 was a difficult horse to train, his fetlock joints, especially when 

 in hard work, causing much anxiety, and on an ankle he bore 

 the scar from one of those paddock fights mentioned in the 

 earlier pages of this volume. 



A feat equal to the foregoing was performed by the three- 

 year-old Donovan in the spring of 1889. There being an 

 unwritten law at Newmarket that a Derby horse may not in 

 these days be tried with all the pomp and circumstance which 

 were once deemed befitting such ceremony, there is always an 

 element of half-heartedness about the proceedings as if some 

 risk or ridicule attached to it. The Duke of Portland, how- 

 ever, was determined to have a taste of his favourite, to see if 

 he had con:ie on as much as was hoped ; so one day towards 

 the end of March he betook himself to ' the Flat,' accompanied 

 by Lady Kilmarnock, Miss Dallas Yorke — now his duchess — - 

 and Lord Coventry. Before this select audience Ayrshire and 

 Donovan, clad in light quarter-sheets, were given a rough gallop 

 over the Rowley Mile, with Deschamps, a three-year-old, at a 

 feather to bring them along as fast and as far as he could, which 

 be it said was a very litde way. The orders to the riders of the 

 cracks were to come right through as hard as they liked, but 

 never to sit down and really finish ; orders which were more 



