REGALIA 



drive her would only result disastrously. Eventu- 

 ally he was beaten by a neck, and an attempt to 

 remonstrate with Cannon upon his successful 

 tactics was only met with the rejoinder, " I know 

 what the old mare is, and I never meant leaving 

 her." 



This severe finish did not take anything out of 

 Regalia, for when she reached the post for the 

 Hunt Cup on the following day it was quite 

 evident that she meant going. Never did she 

 behave worse at the start of any race during her 

 whole career, and there was a terribly long delay, 

 caused almost entirely by her vagaries. At last 

 Arthur Edwards, who was riding Wild Agnes at 

 8 st. 12 lb. for the Duke of Hamilton, and knew 

 how all the false starts were prejudicing the 

 chances of the heavy weights, called out, " Give 

 that old devil one, Tom, and don't let her keep us 

 here all day." Heartfield's own patience was about 

 exhausted, so he foohshly took the advice, the 

 mare dropped into line at once, and the flag fell. 

 For three parts of the distance she could not 

 have gone better, but about a quarter of a mile 

 from home he felt her heart go, as though it 

 were broken by the indignity of being struck, and 

 she dropped clean out of the race in half a dozen 

 strides. Up to that time she and her jockey had 

 been upon the best of terms, but when he went 

 into her box that night she came at him Uke a 

 tiger with her mouth open, and never again 

 allowed him to come near her, indeed the mere 

 sound of his voice was quite enough to rouse her 

 temper. The next day saw a field of ten, and 

 one of the best in point of quaUty that ever con- 

 tested it, go to the post for the Gold Cup, and 

 Regalia was one of the three Oaks winners that 

 took part in it. Thanks to Cannon on John Davis, 



20 



