THREE- YEAR-OLDS. 175 



strictly carried out than they usually are on these occasions. 

 Donovan passed the -post, having much the best of it ; indeed 

 he was pulling, while the lad on Ayrshire was just ' niggling ' 

 to keep his horse going. On weighing afterwards — they had 

 not previously gone to scale — it was found that Donovan had 

 carried i lb. more than his stable companion, who in 1888 had 

 won the Derby, who in the May following this memorable 

 gallop won the 10,000/. Royal Stakes at Kempton, giving 

 3 lbs. and three-quarters of a length beating to Sea Breeze, 

 and who, during the summer, carried off the Eclipse Stakes at 

 Sandown, thus showing that he, at any rate, had not dete- 

 riorated, and was tackle enough to try anything. 



Small wonder that Donovan, after defeating such a 

 champion, made mincemeat of a large field in the Prince of 

 Wales' Stakes at Leicester on April 6, but how, some three 

 weeks later, such a brute as Enthusiast contrived to beat him 

 by a head for the Two Thousand Guineas must ever rem.ain 

 one of the unexplained mysteries of ' the glorious uncertainty.' 

 The only possible explanation seems to be that Tom Cannon on 

 the winner stole the race. 



To go back from Donovan to Ormonde looks like wanton 

 disregard of chronological sequence, but on the principle of 

 keeping the best to the last, a gallop (as usual a rough one), 

 which Ormonde had just before his Derby of 1886, comes here 

 in proper order, as capping the doughty deeds hitherto 

 recorded. Porter thought his horse wanted an ' eye-opener,' 

 and decided to give it him with old Whipper-in, amongst 

 others, telling the lads to come along the whole way. Ormonde 

 had all his work cut out to get in front, but just managed it at 

 the finish. On returning to stables Porter weighed all the 

 boys who had taken part in the 'rough-up' and found that 

 Ormonde had been giving 22 lbs. to Whipper-in, an aged 

 horse complimented with top weight whenever the handicapper 

 had a chance at him, who had the reputation of 'running his 

 races out,' both at home and abroad, and who was demon- 

 strably some 26 lbs. better than The Cob, a three-year-old 

 with considerable pretensions to form. 



