THE DUKE OF PORTLAND 



of his stable companion, Iambic (6 st. 7 lb.). I do 

 not think it is any exaggeration to write that he 

 could have beaten everything in the race by a 

 hmidred yards if necessary, or that 10 st. would 

 not have stopped him on that afternoon, and this 

 opinion must have been pretty general, for 11 to 8 

 was all that was obtainable against him at flag- 

 fall. The season was wound up with a match for 

 500 sov. over the Bretby Stakes course with the 

 Duke of Westminster's Duke of Richmond (late 

 Bushey), whose only previous performance had 

 been an easy victory in the Richmond Stakes at 

 Goodwood. In that race Harvester and Queen 

 Adelaide were amongst the unplaced division, 

 so the colt had some really high -class form to 

 recommend him, and supporters of St. Simon 

 were lucky enough to be allowed to lay the very 

 moderate odds of 2 to 1 on him. 



There never was a better doer or a horse with 

 a finer constitution than St. Simon possessed, and 

 he may be said never to have been sick or sorry 

 during the time that he was in training. He 

 certainly had a slight cough once during his first 

 season, but there was nothing really wrong with 

 him, and he was able to keep at work whilst nearly 

 every other horse in the stable was dead amiss. 

 He had some marvellous escapes during the winter 

 of 1883-4. The weather was very severe, and 

 the Heath House string could only do walking 

 exercise on a straw bed for the better part of a 

 month. No doubt the straw track was quite wide 

 enough for a horse that was fairly quiet, but St. 

 Simon was always dancing about and getting his 

 feet on to the ice at the sides, the consequence 

 being that he slipped up and fell no less than 

 seventeen times in a single week. The most 

 extraordinary part of the business was that he 



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