176 



RACING. 



Few\Yho saw, none who betted on, the One Thousand Guineas 

 in 1890, will ever forget their feehngs of astonishment when they 

 saw coming down the Abingdon mile hill that Memoir, a 10 to i 

 chance, fairly held wSemolina on whom careful men had merrily 

 laid 2 to I. What dismay, what a falling of the mighty there 

 would have been, but for the Duke of Portland's declaration 

 to win v.'ith his favourite ; for at that time he held her in higher 

 esteem than her stable companion, and with good reason, since 

 Semolina, as a two-year-old, had run fifteen times, beginning 

 with the Brocklesby, and ending with the Middle Park Plate; 

 twice only had she been defeated, and then by really high class 

 animals — Riviera and Signorina were both brilliant fillies — and 

 she had cleverly beaten Surefoot, who won the Two Thousand 

 Guineas at his first three-year-old essay. Memoir, on the other 

 hand, ran six times at two years old, won three races where 

 she beat nothing worth twopence, and had in her turn been 

 beaten by some dreadful wretches. 



Thus book form seemed quite good enough to follow, but 

 the Duke had another and most weighty reason for supposing 

 Semolina to be the better of his two mares. They had never 

 been put together directly the previous year, not even col- 

 laterally enough to know what they could do with each other, 

 so on April 12, 1890, they were regularly tried as follows on 

 the Rowley Mile : 



Won by half a length; length and a half between second and 

 third. 



The public were as usual pretty much in the Duke's confi- 

 dence, and their own was fortified by the knowledge of this 

 gallop, but they had all won their money over Semolina during 

 the past year, they were fond of her, and would probably have 

 made her favourite whatever the result of the trial had been, 



