THREE- YEAR-OLDS. 173 



better than Conseil, five years, who only the week before had 

 won the Manchester Cup, carrying 7 st. 3 Ibs. in a 'field of 

 twelve ; and Dalham, who was then in form is it not 

 written in the book how he was that year second in the Hunt 

 Cup at Ascot, with 8 st. 12 Ibs. ? was beaten very easily a mile 

 at 7 Ibs. by Forerunner, yet could he get no nearer than 

 second to Kisber, who was probably on that day an exception- 

 ally good horse, Anyhow, as Ryan, Mr. Houldsworth's trainer, 

 remarked before the race, ' he was the only horse that had ever 

 fairly beaten Springfield at two-year-old, and that should make 

 him worth backing for most Derbies.' What Bend Or was capable 

 of doing at home with his comrades before he won the Derby 

 of 1880 we are unable to state, for the very sufficient reason 

 that he was not tried at all, though we may here mention that 

 as a yearling he was better than Ramsbury, a smart two-year- 

 old plater, at even weights ! So that his career seems to have 

 been foreshadowed almost from infancy. 



Mr. Peck says that Peregrine, who won the Two Thousand 

 in 1 88 1, was in his opinion the best horse he ever tried. 

 Before the Guineas he beat Bend Or at i61bs., and on the 

 Saturday before the Derby ran a dead heat with him at 20 Ibs. ; 

 and that the four-year-old was in his very best form there can 

 be no question, for he had won the City and Suburban easily, 

 giving 2 st. 7 Ibs. to Foxhall, not to speak of the victory over 

 Robert the Devil in the Epsom Cup. What manner of horse 

 then must Iroquois have been who beat such a flyer as Pere- 

 grine in the Derby ? Truly our American cousins were to the 

 front in those days, for in the autumn of that year Foxhall 

 would probably have beaten Bend Or at even weights another 

 instance of the enormous improvement which the summer 

 months may effect in a three-year-old. 



A famous horse in more ways than one is Bend Or. Green 

 in the memory of our readers must be that celebrated lawsuit, 

 the outcome of ' Pavo's ' strictures on Mr. Peck's stable manage- 

 ment, allusion to which comes fittingly under the head of trials ; 

 for it was one in which the * Morning Post ' had a beating of we 



