240 THE ENGLISH TURF 



feel inclined to name first Sam Darling, of Beckhampton, 

 near Calne, who within the last three years has won the 

 Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby once and the 

 St. Leger twice, to say nothing of other big stakes. Darling, 

 whose father and grandfather were trainers before him, has 

 done great things with horses bred in Ireland, but imported 

 to this country in their early days. With Kilcock, by the 

 St. Leger winner Kilwarlin, he won a host of good races 

 up to a mile ; and during the present decade no trainer has 

 shown us a more perfect specimen of the modern racehorse. 

 Though by no means a big one, and never able to travel 

 beyond a mile, Kilcock has perfect symmetry and quality 

 of a most pronounced description. At first sight he looks 

 light of bone, especially below the knee, but he is not so 

 really, the fact being that his bone is so round as to look 

 smaller than it really is. No racehorse of recent times has 

 come in for more adulation from a paddock crowd, or with 

 greater justice, than Kilcock. But Kilcock in 1895 and 1896 

 was only a promise of what Beckhampton was to do in the 

 near future ; and in 1897 Darling threw down the gauntlet in 

 earnest, and with another Irish-bred one secured the triple 

 crown, to say nothing of the valuable Newmarket Stakes. 

 Whether Galtee More was ever the great horse his many 

 admirers tried to make him out is a point which will never 

 be decided. He won the Middle Park Plate, Two Thousand 

 Guineas, Derby, and Newmarket Stakes with the greatest 

 ease, but he only just scrambled home in front of three very 

 moderate horses in the St. Leger, and in the Cambridgeshire 

 six weeks later he failed to do more than make a fair show 

 under 8 st. 10 lbs. Of him, however, two facts can be fairly 

 urged : firstly, that he was a long way the best of his year ; 

 and, secondly, that he was one of the grandest-looking horses 

 of modern times. He had all the size and substance of the 

 best of the Stockwell family, and to this was added such 

 "quality" as is rarely found in so big a horse. In 1898 

 Darling again won the St. Leger — this time with Wildfowler, 

 an Irish-bred son of Gallinule, who beat the Derby winner 

 Jeddah. Darling is quite at the top of his profession. 



At Burbage, in Wilts, H. Braine, who was for many 



