EARLY TRIALS, 143 



got her down to the Bretby Stakes post right enough, and when 

 the flag fell, held a wide berth on the whip hand and let her do 

 as she pleased, and what she pleased to do was to win anyhow. 

 Her sole effort as a four-year-old, when she met Charibert at 

 Ascot, was not crowned with success. 



Let us go on to some two-year-old trials where the early 

 promise may not have been so brilliant, but where subsequent 

 performance more than redeemed it. 



In March 1880 Althotas and ^Enone were tried at 

 weight for age with Sutler, and Sutler won rather easily, yet 

 Althotas was only just beaten by Wandering Nun for the 

 Brocklesby, and he won the Althorp Park Stakes at Northamp- 

 ton ; while yEnone was successful the first four times of 

 asking, at Ipswich, Newmarket, and Sandown. Neither of this 

 pair was quite first-class ; for Sutler was by no means a 

 speedy horse, and the young ones should have beaten him, his 

 best course being probably a mile. However, they both trained 

 on, and oddly enough both won the Spencer Plate, /Enone 

 as a three, and Althotas as a four-year-old. 



Belle Lurette again, tried with Sutler and a speedy mare 

 called Grace, a five-year-old (a winner of many short-distance 

 races) at weight for age, beat them both two or three lengths, 

 and she won the Brocklesby easily enough ; but Convert, who 

 was second to her, and also second best (which is by no means 

 the same thing), had, if we rightly remember, been tried with 

 and just beaten a horrible four-year-old called Topsy, who is 

 still, for aught we know, * dreeing her weird ' over hurdles at 

 Chandler's Ford and suchlike places. 



On the occasion when Mr. Craven actually carried off 

 the Brocklesby, his trial was of a very different nature, for he 

 asked Lucy Ashton to beat Rosie at 18 Ibs. (Rosie being a 

 six-year-old mare, who that season won several handicaps in 

 good company), and Lucy answered the question. When tried 

 just before Epsom Summer 1884 for the Acorn Stakes (in 

 which she split both her pasterns), she just did Rosie at 

 even weights. As the season advances there is no better trying 



