AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 239 



breed. Suppress betting by legal enactment, the game 

 is up, thoroughbred stock would be depreciated 60 per 

 cent., and our racecourses ploughed up." 



September has been unanimously voted the " mares' 

 month," from it being a common occurrence for fillies 

 to be seen at great advantage at this period of the year. 

 This often had been upheld in regard to the St. Leger in 

 such instances as those of Caller Ou, Achievement, 

 Formosa, Hannah, and Marie Stuart in the preceding 

 tv^elve years or so. In Apology's year, of which we are 

 now speaking, the St. Leger was an acknowledged con- 

 test between the North and South, but never in the long 

 and stirring history of the race was the feud more 

 accentuated than on the present occasion with George 

 Frederick and Apology, the hero and heroine of the two 

 opposing forces. Since Caller Ou's sensational victory 

 in '61, when she started at the extreme outside price of 

 100 to 1, the favourites had had it pretty much their 

 own way, although in '70 Hawthornden upset calcula- 

 tions by starting at 1000 to 35, and winning handsomely 

 indeed, whilst Wenlock had bowled over the flying 

 Prince Charlie two years previously. Generally 

 speaking, in the period from '66 to '74, the former being 

 the year when Lord Lyon gained the three great 

 " classics," the Derby winners had the worst of the deal 

 in the Leger. In '67 the short price of 5 to 4 was taken 

 about Hermit, who, though he somewhat saved his 

 reputation by running second, struck his flag to the 

 great mare Achievement. In '69, as the story has been 

 told in these pages, 6 to 5 on was the starting jDrice of 

 Pretender, on whom our hero had the mount, and he 

 was " lost " at Doncaster by Pero Gomez, who had 

 succumbed in the Derby by a short head to the bearer 

 of the " all blue and silver." In '73 Doncaster, who had 



