THE FRENCH JOCKEY CLUB 39 



liorse-racing ; for when, in 1864, tliere was no blinking 

 tlie fact tliat the winner of tlie English Derby (and a 

 winner so idolised — without sufficient cause, perhaps— 

 as Blair Athol) had been beaten fairly and squarely, full 

 weight for age, over a distance that was an undeniable 

 test, by a French horse, not only bred in France, but 

 never sent out of France for a whiff of the Newmarket 

 breeze, or a gallop on Newmarket Heath, or a change of 

 air and a bit of exercise on English downs, the owner of 

 that horse, Vermont by name (and a very bitter sort of 

 ' pick-me up ' he seemed), was M. Henri Delamarre. 



As for Count DemidofT, who comes next in order, he 

 is made out to have been that Count Anatole DemidofT 

 (created Count or Duke of San Donate by the Grand 

 Duke of Tuscany) who married Princess Mathilde (cousin 

 of Napoleon HI.) in 1841 and separated from her 

 by mutual consent in 1845. The Count, whose family 

 derived fabulous wealth from the Ural mines, was born 

 at Florence in 1812 and died at Paris in 1870. His 

 father had imported Arabian horses into the Crimea, 

 and he himself imported English thoroughbreds into 

 Eussia, France, and Italy. His name is found in con- 

 nection with that of the celebrated Sir Joseph Hawley 

 in the chronicles of horse-racing at Florence. Count 

 Anatole, or Prince Anatole, as he afterwards became, is 

 far better remembered as a great traveller (which made 

 his horse-racing desultory), as a munificent patron of 

 art and literature, and as no mean man of letters him- 

 self, than as one of the ' fathers of the French Turf.' No 

 wonder, then, that his colours — green and orange fringe, 

 blue cap — were not seen very often in the front at French 

 races. Among his published works may be mentioned 

 a ' Voyage dans la Eussie Meridionale et la Crimee, 

 par la Hongrie, la Valachie et la Moldavie ' and (post- 



