JAMES MERRY 



entered Sunshine for a great many stakes, and 

 almost his first question after his return to this 

 country was, "Why did you engage that filly so 

 heavily ? " " Because she's such a good galloper in 

 the paddock," was the reply — Waugh being a firm 

 believer in this test of promise in a yearhng — and 

 Mr. JNIerry's rejoinder, "But her brother's such a 

 bad one," did not shake his faith for a moment. 

 This " brother " was Phoebus, whom Sunbeam had 

 thrown to Thormanby two seasons before produ- 

 cing Sunshine. He was " altered " very early in his 

 career, and he and his distinguished sister bore a 

 remarkable likeness to each other, a likeness which 

 proved uncommonly useful on more than one 

 occasion, and was the despair of the touts, as 

 members of that industrious fraternity were con- 

 stantly deluded into reporting Sunshine as having 

 done a good gallop when she had never been out 

 of her stable, and her "understudy" had taken 

 her place in the string. Although Sunshine was 

 beaten in her trial as a yearling, a trial to which I 

 shall have to refer again, she must have satisfied 

 her trainer thoroughly before making her first 

 appearance in public in the Woodcote Stakes — a 

 race in which Belladrum had made a successful 

 debut twelve months previously, for she started at 

 9 to 4 in a field of twenty, and won by a couple of 

 lengths. Probably Mahonia was the best of those 

 that finished behind her, but Green Riband, 

 Temple, Braemar, and several of the others were 

 equal to winning races. Then came the July 

 Stakes, which she secured pretty easily from 

 Alaric, with Normanby " down the course." Her 

 first real battle was in the Lavant Stakes at Good- 

 wood, in which Daley, who was riding her for the 

 first time in public, just squeezed her home a head 

 in front of Tom French on Mantilla, a very speedy 



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