XI 



THE DUKE OF PORTLAND 



Dame Fortune is usually strangely capricious, 

 and either gives with both hands, or resolutely 

 refuses the smallest share of her favours. This 

 is specially noticeable in connection with Turf 

 matters, and, with the solitary exception of the 

 late Lord Falmouth, whose horses more than 

 paid their way, season after season, with charm- 

 ing regularity, owners have always experienced 

 sino;ular alternations of luck. The career of the 

 Duke of Portland furnishes one of the most 

 curious examples of this that could possibly be 

 brought forward. Roughly speaking, from about 

 1887 to 1894 he could scarcely do wrong. In that 

 short space of time he secured a Two Thousand, 

 two One Thousands, two Derbies, two Oaks, a 

 St. Leger, and an Eclipse Stakes, to say nothing 

 of innumerable other valuable prizes. Then came 

 a complete change, the years of plenty were suc- 

 ceeded by the years of famine, and not a horse 

 carrying the once invincible " white, black sleeves 

 and cap " seemed able to get his head first past the 

 post. The most extraordinary part of the business 

 was that during these barren years St. Simon was 

 in the very zenith of his fame, and that Ayrshire, 

 Donovan, St. Serf, and others of the Welbeck 



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