LORD FALMOUTH AND SILVIO 243 



Athol among the lot under notice. One was Redwing, 

 a big bay or brown, out of Wheatear (dam of Skylark), 

 and the other was a still bigger chestnut, Lady of Mercia, 

 out of Lady Coventry, whose three-year-old bay daughter, 

 Lady Golightly, was also on view. Of Lady of Mercia 

 Lord Falmouth had very high hopes indeed, but they did 

 not materialise. Her name appears, however, in not a few 

 good French pedigrees. Redwing, on the other hand, 

 was a success, and won the Coronation Stakes of 1878. 

 Skylark was there, and he was a rare stamp of horse, 

 strong as a castle and very wide to follow. His hocks 

 were not quite what they should be, but they never failed 

 him, and he has his name in the stud book for many a 

 day to come as the sire of Warble, dam of Wargrave and 

 grandam of Spearmint. 



In the course of that morning at Newmarket we went 

 and saw Rob Roy, at Blanton's, and nothing could have 

 been looking better than the blaze-faced chestnut son of 

 Blair Athol and Columba ; but we returned home full of 

 Silvio and his trial, so that all our friends were on him 

 for the Derby. 



And then an evil thing happened, for Silvio ran for the 

 Newmarket Biennial at the Craven Meeting and was 

 unplaced. It was explained that he would not face 

 the rainstorm ; but when it came to the Two Thousand 

 Guineas he finished only third to Chamant and Brown 

 Prince. There was no particular excuse for him that time, 

 and the great tip began to seem an odiously bad one. 

 Altyre, a Cobham-bred Blair Athol, had meanwhile come 

 to the fore by winning two races easily in one afternoon 

 at Newmarket. He was now greatly fancied for the 

 Derby, though as a two-year-old he had seemed so 

 moderate that Mr Beddington half decided to convert 

 him into a park hack. 



Derby day arrived and there were no fewer than five 

 Blair Athols in the field, Silvio, Rob Roy, Altyre, Orleans 

 and Covenanter, all of which, except Silvio, had been sold 

 as yearlings at Cobham. 



