104 FAMOUS RACING MEN. 



Daniel O'Romke who perfectly revelled in the mud, under the 

 able pilotage of P'rank Butler, snatched the race from Hobbie when 

 it really appeared to be at his mercy, and in the final rush for places, 

 Barbarian and The Chief Baron Nicholson also got before him. 

 In 1855 Mr. Merry achieved his first success in the great " classic " 

 three-year-old races, winning the Two Thousand with Lord of the 

 Isles, who though he failed to win the Derby was very lucky at 

 the stud, for having been mated with Marmalade, in his very firt^t 

 year he got the flying Dundee. On removing his horses from 

 Gullane in 1852, Mr. Merry had intrusted the training of them to 

 William Day at Woodyeates, but having come to the conclusion that 

 it would be better to have his horses privately trained, he took 

 Eussley on lease, and installed John Prince as his major-domo. 

 Prince continued in sole charge there till Mr. Merry, by the advice 

 of Matthew Dawson, purchased Lord John Scott's stud of six horses 

 in 1857, for which he gave 6,000 guineas. Matthew Dawson was 

 then associated with Prince in the management of the Russley 

 stables, and their combined talent rendered the yellow jacket the 

 most popular, as well as the most formidable, on the turf. The 

 alliance was severed in 1859, when Prince resigned his situation 

 in consequence of some remarks by Mr. Merry on the condition 

 of Sunbeam (who had won the St. Leger in the previous year), 

 when she was beaten by her old opponent, Toxophilite, for the 

 Port Stakes at Newmarket. Thenceforward till 1870, when he 

 became a public trainer and settled at Newmarket, Mat Daw- 

 son reigned alone at Eussley. His many triumphs during that 

 decade we have not space to enumerate here, but we m\ist content 

 ourselves with allusion to the exploits of the mighty Thormanby, 

 who secured for 3Ir. Merry his first Derby, and with whom the 

 name of the Scottish sportsman will be for ever identified in the 

 annals of the turf. Strange to say, it was by a mere accident that 

 Mr. Merry secured him, for he had been hawked about as a yearling 

 during the Doncaster week without getting a bidder, when INIr. 

 Plummer, his breeder, in despair sent for Mat Dawson to come and 

 look at him. The moment Mat saw him he was smitten with him, 

 and " Put him down to Mr. Merry " was the only reply he made 

 to Mr. Plummer, wlien the latter somewhat diffidently named 350 

 guineas as his figure. Thormanby, who was a son of Windbound 

 out of Alice Hawthorne, and perhaps the gamest and stoutest horse 

 ever foaled, then entered on a career which for its laboiiousness 

 lias had few parellels in modern times, for he ran in fourteen 

 races as a two-year-old, and won no fewer than nine. In his third 

 year, by the advice of Mat Dawson, he was reserved for the great 

 contest at Epsom. And when brought out for the Derby, the fruits 

 of Mat's temporary seclusion from the world — for like a University 

 man reading for lionours, he had gone into the strictest retire- 

 ment — were visible, for never was a horse stripped in finer con- 

 dition than Thormanby. " His coat," says " Argus," " was like 



