198 MEMORIES OF MEN AND HORSES 



which had come to the front a few years earlier through 

 Macaroni. 



In 1873 Doncaster was not a great Derby winner by 

 any means, though equal to the task of beating Gang 

 Forward and Kaiser ; but he had been so reared at 

 Sledmere in those days tnat he gained the unenviable 

 reputation of being the fattest yearling ever sent into 

 a sale ring. It was a hopeless task to train him as a 

 two-year-old, and Robert Peck told me that he himself 

 beat the colt easily over three furlongs on an old hunting 

 mare, Doncaster being ridden by a light boy. There 

 came a change, however, the following year, though 

 not until Derby Day, and even then Doncaster was not 

 nearly at his best. He never reached his zenith till he 

 was five years old, when he won the Ascot Cup and 

 Alexandra Plate in grand style, and proved himself to 

 be a worthy perpetuator of the great Stockwell line. 

 Martin Gurry, who knew Doncaster and his son, 

 Bend Or, well, has told me that there was an immense 

 difference between the two, the sire being a very robust 

 staying horse, while the son was altogether more 

 delicate and by no means such a stayer, but through 

 these two the Stockwell line has, so far, been most 

 strongly organised. 



George Frederick, who succeeded Doncaster as a 

 Derby winner, was a bull-fronted horse, a good one on 

 Derby Day no doubt, but he cannot have been one of 

 the elect indeed I question if his elder brother, Albert 

 Victor, was not better. Nevertheless it is impossible 

 to overlook the great success of Princess of Wales, the 

 dam of these horses, when mated with Marsyas. She 

 produced five foals in succession by Marsyas, and they 

 were Albert Victor, Louise Victoria, Victoria Alexandra, 



