104 THE ENGLISH TURF 



for-sex terms, could not even secure a place. Indeed this 

 running of Paigle showed Diamond Jubilee in a vastly 

 improved light, and he finished up the season with a brace 

 of creditable seconds in the Middle Park and Dewhurst 

 Plates. In both races his conqueror was the American 

 gelding Democrat, and the same form, as regards the pair, 

 was shown on both occasions. The two races made it as 

 clear as noonday that Democrat was the better two-year- 

 old, and he retired into winter quarters the acknowledged 

 best youngster of the year. 



At the same time a majority of the critics * were strongly 

 of opinion that Diamond Jubilee showed greater capability 

 for improvement than Democrat did. The last-named, a 

 gelding, was more set and furnished than the Prince of 

 Wales' colt, but he had been set and furnished when he 

 came out in the spring, whereas Diamond Jubilee, no matter 

 how waywardly he had behaved in any particular race, had 

 come out each time looking a bigger and grander horse 

 than when he last ran. As a matter of course Democrat 

 was the winter favourite for the Derby, but in the early 

 spring the name of Diamond Jubilee began to be freely 

 mentioned in connection with the classic races, and it was 

 soon an open secret that in his work he had given the 

 greatest satisfaction, and also that he had grown into a very 

 grand horse. 



As the time for the Two Thousand Guineas drew nigh 

 it also became generally known that Democrat had not 

 pleased his trainer, and though on his two-year-old form 

 he held an even -money chance for the first of the classic 

 races, the American gelding had no good word from the 

 Newmarket touts, and, to dismiss him briefly, he was not 

 even sent to the post. Neither was the gossip very satis- 

 factory concerning Diamond Jubilee. The old stories about 



* By critics in this connection I mean a certain band of men, drawn from 

 every section of the racing community, whose delight it is to spend nearly all the 

 racing afternoons at Newmarket in the Birdcage, who watch the cracks of the 

 year all the time they are on view, and who are quick to note their condition 

 from meeting to meeting, seeing at once improvement or retrogression, and, 

 naturally enough, forming opinions as to the future which in a majority of cases 

 turn out to be correct. 



