160 HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE 



Slapdash) only very narrowly escaped being an English- 

 man, his dam (Slapdash) having him ' concealed about 

 her person ' when she was imported into France. Then 

 Eervacques ran a dead heat for the Prix with Patricien, 

 and on the ' run-off' very nearly ran another, being 

 officially declared to have ' won by a nose^' a distance 

 it must take a combination of a ' lynx ' and an ' Argus ' 

 to ' spot.' Then, again, Patricien, the loser, was notori- 

 ously about a stone superior to Fervacques, the winner, 

 which is one of those little puzzles so frequent in horse- 

 racing and yet so incomprehensible to the ingenuous, 

 something that ' no feller can understand.' Then, still 

 furtlier, the best horse in the race was probably Troca- 

 dero, who was not ' in it.' However not only had both 

 Patricien and Trocadero a very severe race ' in them,' 

 which they had run for the French Derby, but ' Troc ' 

 (as also Fervacques, as he had lately shown) was pos- 

 sessed of a ' devil of a temper,' which he had not 

 hitherto displayed very badly, but which he kept up at 

 the stud, making it difficult for anybody to shoe him, 

 and showing a disposition to eat a gentleman named 

 Carries who went to ' tame ' him (and did tame him, 

 with some trouble, just long enough for 'shoeing ' him) 

 a la Earey. Then, moreover, Fervacques was bred at 

 the ' haras ' of Fervacques, belonging to that Count de 

 Montgomery who ' ought to have ' won the very first 

 of the Grands Prix with La Toucques, but postponed 

 the achievement till he had a worse horse to perform it 

 with. Lastly, Fervacques became a sojourner in that 

 England of wdiich he had so narrowly escaped being a 

 native, and where he was running at the great age of 

 nine years in 1873, having condescended (it would seem) 

 to the ' jumping business,' which Patricien, his old ' dead- 

 heater,' would never have ' bemeaned ' himself to do. 



