BLAIR ATHOL AND ROBERT PECK 195 



always preferred to him his very close relative, Carnival, 

 who had infinitely better forelegs, and was better looking 

 all round, but having been sent abroad for some years, 

 never had a fair chance of success when he came back 

 to this country, where, nevertheless, he sired Mask, 

 Scobell and other good winners, as also Festive, the 

 dam of L'Abbesse de Jouarre. 



I knew both Macaroni and Carnival well, for we had 

 them as stallions at Cobham ; but Blair Athol I knew 

 from his youth up, as he was bred and trained near to 

 my home in Yorkshire, and everyone there went more 

 or less mad about him, for was he not a son of Stock- 

 well and Blink Bonny (also bred and trained at Malton), 

 who won the Derby and Oaks ? 



Moreover, Blair Athol was a wonder from the day 

 when he was foaled. The late Robert Peck, who was 

 then located at Malton, told me several times that he 

 never saw such a foal as Blair Athol, and, what is more, 

 the colt never looked back at any of his younger stages, 

 though he was a bit weak in the knees. The marvel of 

 it all was that Blair Athol was known to be good enough 

 to back for the Derby in a field of thirty, that being his 

 first race, and he won easily enough. I knew Blair 

 Athol well to the end of his life, and have never seen a 

 more beautiful horse. Most people nowadays think he 

 had a lot of white about his legs, but he had only a near 

 hind fetlock white, and a blaze face. I have never 

 seen a good portrait of him. 



A year later there was some sort of a bogus match 

 made up to show Blair Athol and Gladiateur against 

 one another, and they were both on view at Doncaster ; 

 but such a match was absurd, for Gladiateur was a 

 horse of wholly different type, more suitable for Aintree 



