SOME WINNERS 



discuss them. To rate them according to merit would 

 certainly not be a good plan, for the reason that it would 

 be impossible to make, as it were, a species of handicap, 

 and chronological sequence would be puzzling as they 

 overlap. Perhaps the best way will be to deal with 

 them alphabetically. 



Aerostat 



Some people appear to have a notion that steeplechase 

 horses are chance-bred animals only by a sort of courtesy 

 reckoned as thoroughbred. Probably few readers of 

 this book need be told that this is ludicrously incorrect. 

 Aerostat, for instance, was the son of a Derby winner, 

 and of one who was notable in that list as winner like- 

 wise of the Two Thousand Guineas, the Eclipse Stakes, 

 and a number of the most valuable prizes on the Turf — 

 Ayrshire. Mr. Arthur Coventry was riding one day on 

 Newmarket Heath a good looking mare named 

 Molynoo, and pulled up to talk to the Duke of Port- 

 land, who was struck by his friend's mount, asked what 

 she was, and kindly said that if Mr. Coventry cared to 

 do so he might send her to Ayrshire. Meantime Mr. 

 Bibby bought her, and Aerostat was born at Hardwicke 

 Grange. As a four-year-old he was only out once, in 

 a Novices' Steeplechase at Newport, but as a five-year- 

 old he did remarkably well, winning no fewer than six 

 of the eleven races for which he started. Aintree was 

 rather too much for him. He tried in the Stanley 



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