TOD SLOAN ON SIR MARTIN 



carrying what is in your reckoning 8 st. 13 lb. He 

 did that in ^ths of a second over the minute. Then he 

 carried 129 lb. (9 st. 3lb.) and won a six-furlong race 

 in 1 min. 12 sec. He beat Wedding Bells and a lot of 

 others carrying 122 lb. (8 st. 10 lb.) in the Saratoga 

 Special ; and then ran second in the Futurity, but 

 turned the tables on Maskette at Flatbush, doing the 

 seven furlongs in 1 min. 25| sec. In his thirteen 

 races Sir Martin has been second four times, and has 

 won eight times, only being out of the first three on one 

 occasion." That was the dope (form) of Sir Martin. 



I met Tod Sloan and he said : " Don't be silly. You 

 think you may know the winner, but Sir Martin is the 

 greatest certainty ever known here. I wish I had my 

 ' ticket ' and was going to ride him ; I'd show them 

 the sort of horse he is." There is a lot to say of 

 Sloan in another book, and then you will see that it 

 was almost inevitable to believe him, but fortunately, 

 as it happened, everyone wanted to back Sir Martin 

 and the price didn't suit me. He went to the post, 

 therefore, without a penny being invested on him by 

 your Uncle Dudley. I met Sloan a little while before 

 the " off " and he said : " You're going to have a good 

 win of course ? " "I hope so," I replied, " but not 

 over Sir Martin. He's too hot for my taste." He 

 jeered at me. I had given Minoru as my nap for the 

 race and William the Fourth for a place. It came 

 out correctly, but I shall alw^ays think that the last- 

 named with a bit of luck should have won and — now 

 I am going to say a startling thing — I shall never 

 believe that Louviers lost. I drew my money over 

 Minoru, but without any disrespect to Judge Robin- 

 son, an official whom I hold in the greatest esteem, 

 I cannot get out of my mind the idea that it was very 

 difficult to separate Minoru from Louviers and that the 



219 



