FAMOUS HORSES 6i 



consequently enjoys credit which he does not really 

 deserve as the victor in this event. He was a sadly 

 bad-tempered horse, and sank to the lowest depths. 



"He won the Derby" is the best recommendation 

 a horse can have whilst he lives, the most effective 

 and suggestive epitaph he can earn. The world in 

 general accepts this as fame, in spite of all that is 

 urged about the probably higher value of the St. 

 Leger as a real test of merit, disregarding the circum- 

 stances, so obvious to experts, that between Derby 

 winners there is a vast amount of difference. Ormonde 

 won the Derby ; so did Sir Visto ; and as Derby 

 winners the outsider would very likely place them much 

 on the same mark ; but though it is quite impossible 

 accurately to gauge the respective capacity of the 

 fields of 1886 and 1895, if experts do not agree that 

 Ormonde was a 2 st. better horse, it is only because 

 many good judges will continue to doubt whether that 

 difference of weight would have broueht the two 

 together had they been contemporaries. Accepting 

 that view, and having regard to the need of brevity 

 in this article, it is not every Derby or Leger winner 

 whose performances can be discussed at length or 

 even liberally summarised. 



Avoiding not thrice, but thirty-times-told tales, litde 

 need be said about the Derby of 1868, which Sir Joseph 

 Hawley won with Blue Gown. To win the Derby at 

 all is so great an object of every owner's ambition, or 

 of every owner with very few exceptions, that one 



