THREE- YEAR-OLDS. 



171 



field which contained but one good animal besides himself 

 Belphcebe. 1 



One of the most remarkable trials, perhaps the most note- 

 worthy trial of modern days, was that which took place in the 

 spring of 1879, when Silvio, five years, Jannette, four years, 

 Wheel of Fortune, three years, and Charibert, three years, went 

 down together to the Rowley Mile post to try conclusions over 

 that famous mile. Well might Matthew Dawson exclaim to his 

 employer, ' There's a sight, my lord, the like of which you may 

 never see again,' and a goodly sight it must have been. The 

 winner of a Derby and Leger, the winner of an Oaks and 

 Leger, the putative and, as events proved, actual winner of the 

 One Thousand and Oaks, and the actual, though almost un- 

 dreamt of, winner of the Two Thousand ! A racing man can 

 imagine no greater agony of delicious excitement. 



On this occasion, having regard to the unusual excellence of 

 the trial horses, they ran at weight for age, and Wheel of For- 

 tune won pretty cleverly, Jannette beating Silvio two or three 

 lengths, a feat which she had already accomplished, though with 



1 The exact details of this trial, which took place on April 24, are 



Won very easily by half a length. Huxtable said he could have won by 

 five lengths, but did not like to press the horse, and considered it a 7 Ibs. 

 beating. There was perhaps some excuse for Silvio in the Biennial, owing to the 

 race being run in a blinding storm, when neither jockeys nor horses knew what 

 they were about ; but why should he afterwards have succumbed to Chamant 

 and Brown Prince in a Two Thousand chiefly memorable for the favouritism of 

 Morier, that rankest of turf impostors? The trial, however, came out right 

 enough at last, when in the Derby Silvio, who started at n to i, beat a field of 

 sixteen, and very decisively turned the tables upon Chamant and Brown Prince ; 

 and he did not meet his master again that year, save when the mighty Spring- 

 field, poisoned horse though he was, romped home in front of him for the 

 Champion Stakes. 



1 



