SIXTY YEARS ON THE TURF 



of Fortune was at my feet. Failure was a word I 

 imagined, as I hope all my readers have at times 

 supposed in their cases, that had been expunged 

 from my dictionary. The Turf, though, if a tempt- 

 ing is at times a stern mistress, and by the hour 

 Flying Dutchman (1849) won the Derby I had 

 severe reason for reflection on the fleeting character 

 of riches. I went for a very heavy stake on 

 Tadmor, and the combination of backing the son of 

 Ion and opposing the son of Bay Middleton played 

 havoc with my banking account. The Turf world 

 at the time was divided in about equal sections over 

 the pair, who started at the same price (2 to l), and 

 ran first and third, the intervener being Mr. Godwin's 

 Hotspur. (I should have mentioned that at the 

 time I kept a list, at the Fleet Street end of Poppin's 

 Court.) Of course Tadmor was, as events proved, 

 " taking on " in " The Dutchman " one of the horses 

 of the century. Yet he, small as he was, proved 

 himself no " slouch," and so stoutly was he galloping 

 at the finish that I thought, and still think, that in 

 another fifty yards he would have overhauled his 

 mighty rival. The experience gave me a dread 

 rather than a dislike of the Derby — in truth of the 

 classics generally as betting then was conducted. 

 Nor did the course of after years do anything to 

 mitigate the feeling. Such men as " Davies the 



21 



