DANEBURY DAYS 



in such hollow fashion that, within a few hours 

 of the gallop, the Marquis of Hastings and Mr. 

 " Peter " Wilkinson bought him jointly for, I 

 believe, £600. Having regard to his previous 

 performances, this looked to be plenty of money, 

 but he turned out to be one of the greatest 

 bargains in all the history of the Turf. The joint 

 owners were not long out of their money, for, just 

 a fortnight after his transfer to Danebury, Lecturer 

 made his appearance in the New Plate at the 

 Newmarket Craven. This was decided over the 

 T.Y.C., he was handicapped at 5 st. 9 lb., and 

 ridden by little Kenyon, the then fashionable 

 light weight, and one who has had very few 

 superiors. There were seventeen other runners, 

 including such well-known performers as Archi- 

 medes, Tourmalin, Caithness, and Mirella, so the 

 amount that must have gone on Lecturer, in 

 these days of heavy gambling, to bring him to 

 5 to 4 can well be imagined. However, the short 

 price was fully justified, as he won in a hack 

 canter, and followed this up by landing a mile 

 handicap at Bath. Then came a bit of a fiasco, 

 as, on the following day, a note appears in the 

 Calendar at the end of the account of the Dyr- 

 ham Park Plate to the effect that " Mr. J. Day's 

 Rattler, 3 yrs., 5 st. 10 lb. (Prangle), and M. of 

 Hastings' Lecturer, 3 yrs., 7 st. 3 lb. — including 

 7 lb. extra — (H. Day) were weighed for, and their 

 numbers put up, but they did not reach the post 

 in time to start." Notwithstanding this, the 

 betting is returned as "6 to 4 on Lecturer," 

 though surely, as he clearly never came under the 

 starter's orders, all bets upon him must have 

 been off. In the Brighton Stakes at the Epsom 

 Summer Meeting he was pretty well crushed 

 with 8 St. 4 lb., and it is not surprising that he 



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