PEDIGREE OF PRINCE PALATINE 



then at his best, there are many racegoers who have 

 a rooted indisposition to accept excuses, which far 

 more often than not turn out to possess Httle found- 

 ation. How much was Persimmon behind his real 

 form at Newmarket the previous autumn ? people 

 asked. Admitting that the statement of his back- 

 wardness had truth in it, they argued, perhaps it was 

 not sufficient to account for all those five lengths. 

 Had there been very much the matter with him, it 

 was further protested, so careful a trainer as Marsh, 

 and so experienced a manager as Lord Marcus 

 Beresford, would surely have dissuaded his Royal 

 Highness from running ; and the Prince was always 

 ready to follow their strong recommendations. 

 Persimmon had, moreover, started a strong favourite 

 at 2 to I for the Middle Park Plate, and the consensus 

 of opinion which causes a horse to stand at such short 

 odds, especially for an important race, is almost 

 invariably guided and formed by knowledge. 

 Furthermore, Persimmon had not been able to run 

 for the Two Thousand Guineas, and this was 

 necessarily held to tell against him. St. Frusquin 

 had won that classic, and had done so with superlative 

 ease, his success having been regarded as so assured 

 that odds of lOO to 12 had actually been laid upon 

 him. 



The Prince almost invariably arrived on a course 

 well before the first race, and he reached Epsom on 



15 



