212 HOESE-EACING IN FRANCE 



the ' flyers ' and ' resurrectionists ' of the day, had been 

 trying for two years (generally without success) to 

 ' extend,' and who had lost only one event out of 

 eighteen ; and here were the dauntless descendants of 

 Vercingetorix offerinj? to match ao-ainst him a horse 



O ~ CD 



that was contemptuously styled a (comparatively) very 

 small ' pertater.' It is true the match was over 

 Eowley's mile — 1 mile 17 yards — instead of the T.Y.C., 

 but that is the very course over which ' the Prince,' 

 roarer though he was, had won the Two Thousand 

 against such a ' clipper ' as Cremorne. Let Clio — muse 

 of history — relate what was the fate of ' Pertater : ' he 

 was beaten ' in a canter.' 



We have now arrived at the year 1875, when ' the 

 fusion ' was a fully accomplished fact, when Lagrange 

 and Lefevre, as formerly Lagrange and Niviere, had 

 united their hosts, when once more a ' Big Stable,' or 

 even a ' Bigger Stable,' threatened to sweep off every- 

 thing on the ' hippodromes ' of fair France and on the 

 racecourses of perfidious Albion. 



But, once more, it was not to be. Neither in France 

 nor in En2:land was ' the fusion ' irresistible in 1875. 



In that year the French ' cracks ' at home were 

 M. Lupin's Salvator (three years, winner of the French 

 Derby and of the Grand Prix de Paris), M. Delatre's 

 Tyrolienne (three years, winner of the French Oaks, 

 after a dead heat with Almanza), M. Lupin's Saint-Cyr 

 (three years, winner of the Poule d'Essai and of the 

 PrixdeLongchamps), M. Lupin's Almanza (three years ; 

 ran a dead heat with Tyrolienne for the French Oaks, 

 and won the Poule des Produits, now called Prix Daru, 

 and the Grande Poule des Produits), Mr. Davis's Per- 

 plexe (three years, winner of the Prix Eoyal Oak), 

 M. II. Delamarre's Boiard (five years, winner of the Prix 



