LA TOUCQUES, VERMOUT, FILLE DE L'AIR, GLADIATEUR 151 



handled his ' mount ' as if he wished ' to show off on 

 French soil the hero of the native breed in all his 

 crushing superiority.' But it was not so easy ; for, 

 although the field for the Grand Prix comprised some 

 excellent horses (there being but one ' Englishman,' how- 

 ever, among the six starters) — to wit, Vertugadin (second, 

 winner of the Prix de I'Ete), Tourmalet (third, winner 

 ofthePoule des Produits), Gontran (fourth, winner of 

 the French Derby), Todleben (English, fifth, very 

 ' moderate '), and Le Mandarin (sixth, winner of the 

 Prix de I'Empereur, now Grande Poule des Produits), 

 they could not make Gladiateur gallop, and Grimshaw 

 could only ' make a race of it ' by pulling his horse back 

 and keeping him seven or eight lengths behind Vertu- 

 gadin until the last turn, so that the spectators thought 

 for a moment that 'it would be too late.' Then 

 suddenly Grimshaw let out his horse, which, in the 

 words of a compatriot, 'coming like a torrent, passed 

 all his competitors in three bounds, only to resume at 

 their head his easy and tranquil stride. There was no 

 struggle, no vestige of doubt : Gladiateur had put him- 

 self in motion, and all the rest were nowhere.' 



At Ascot Gladiateur did not come out ; but at 

 Goodwood he won the Drawing-Room Stakes (beating 

 Longdown, who had once run a dead heat with him at 

 two years of age, by foi'ty letigth.s) and walked over for 

 tlie Bentinck Memorial ; he won the St. Leger and the 

 Doncaster Stakes ; he won the Prix du Prince Imperial 

 (now Prix Eoyal Oak) at Paris Autumn Meeting from 

 his only opponent Vertugadin ; he won the Newmarket 

 Derby (again beating hy forty lengths his old opponent 

 Longdown, who alone faced him) ; and, lastly, as if to 

 try whether he were really horse or demon, he was 

 started for the Cambridgeshire with the impossible 



