CHASING AND RACING 193 



The only cheap horses bought for less than ^200 

 which ran for me and failed to win were, I think, that 

 king of thieves Roscidus and a filly called Pretty Wit ; 

 but there were one or two which I bought at auction 

 as yearlings which could not be trained, including a 

 very beautiful filly called Reve Royal, by Royal 

 Hampton — The Dream. She showed extraordinary 

 promise and won a big trial, but subsequently split 

 a pastern and never ran. 



After Dornroschen's amazing performance in the 

 Portsmouth Stakes, I was encouraged to invest my 

 winnings and to launch out. Lord Rosslyn was selling 

 his string, and Sam Pickering was very keen on my 

 buying the ch. filly Sybil Roy, who had won a high- 

 class two-year-old stake at Newmarket, and another 

 important race, also a rather small bk. c. called Grong, 

 who, Sam said, was sure to pick up a nice race. Well, 

 Sybil Roy was knocked down to me for 1200 guineas, 

 and Grong for 300 guineas. Neither was ever even 

 placed after becoming my property I Sybil Roy 

 first turned jady and then became an absolute maniac. 

 No one could do anything with her. I sold her as a 

 make-weight to the elder Sir John Thursby, when he 

 took over Dornroschen, Blankney & Co. His son 

 George afterwards told me that the filly had been 

 covered by the last-named, and that she had thrown a 

 foal — I forget its sex — which turned out as madly 

 intractable as its dam. So much for my " invest- 



V 



ment '* ! A propos " forgetfulness of sex," a good 



o 



