BREEDING 279 



wood, has since won the Great Metropolitan twice and the 

 Goodwood Cup. 



It is, however, at the dispersal of big studs that the 

 nuggets are most often found. Good handicap horses in 

 December are often sold for a few hundred pounds, and 

 in the following year turn out to be worth as many- 

 thousands. In December, 1896, a patron of Waugh's stable 

 gave 1,300 guineas for Piety, and in the following May won 

 the Manchester Cup (worth ;^ 1,887) with him. Only a few 

 weeks before Mr, " Jersey " gave 360 guineas for Brayhead, 

 who in the following year won the Liverpool Cup and other 

 races. And in December, 1897, ^^e Duke of Portland disposed 

 of Airs and Graces — who ran second for the One Thousand 

 and afterwards won the Oaks — for 470 guineas. At the 

 same sale Mr. Newton bought Clipstone for 630 guineas, 

 and the horse won two valuable handicaps in the following- 

 spring ; and other bargains secured at the same time were 

 Marius II., bought by Mr. C. D. Rose for 1,050 guineas, 

 and Carhaix, purchased by the Duke of Devonshire for 660 

 guineas. That it is better policy to give five or six hundred 

 pounds for a ready-made racehorse than four times the 

 amount for an untried yearling is sound common sense ; 

 but, strange to say, the high-priced yearlings go far beyond 

 the intrinsic value of the average, whilst the ready-made 

 racehorses, if there is no reserve, are sold cheap. The high 

 price of the yearling is to be accounted for by the laudable 

 anxiety to possess a " classic " winner, who is not to be met 

 with in the ready-made horse, with the rarest exceptions, 

 some of which are cited below. 



Private sales are by no means so common as sales by 

 auction ; still a good many horses — some valuable and some 

 the reverse — change hands every year by private contract, 

 but as there is of course no record of such sales, it is not an 

 easy matter to give illustrations of what has been good for 

 the buyer, or the reverse. The story is told every week 

 how Lord George Bentinck, sick at heart of racing, in a 

 moment of despondency sold his entire stud for i^ 10,000, 

 and how Crucifix the next year won the Derby, But the 

 normal lines of the Turf do not run in such grooves as this. 



