FROM HOWL FOR 'RECIPROCITY' TO PRESENT DAY 2Q5 



confederacy after the season of 1862. For Count de Lagrange, 

 having begun his racing career by purchasing the excellent stud 

 of the celebrated MM. Aumont, and retaining the services of 

 Tom Jennings as trainer, in 1857, had soon afterwards entered 

 into partnership with Baron Niviere, who had struck a similar 

 bargain with Prince Marc de Beauvau for the stud of La Morlaye 

 and the services of Henry Jennings, the elder brother of Tom ; 

 and the united owners set up an establishment at Newmarket, 

 and, with the assistance of ' the great twin brethren ' as trainers, 

 Tom at New^market and Henry at Chantilly, Royallieu, La 

 Morlaye, and wherever else the Count trained in France, did so 

 well in England that the ' Big Stable,' as the fraternity was 

 called, stood fifth on the English list of winning owners in 1861, 

 the first year of asking. But at the end of another year the 

 partnership was dissolved, and the Count carried on the cam- 

 paign in England single-handed, and single-handed he carried 

 the triumphs of French blood stock to a climax that astounded 

 both countries. It was whispered, no doubt, that the Count 

 had an Imperial partner in the place of the retired Baron, and 

 the sale of the Count's stud on the eve of 'the event of 1870' 

 has been held to give colour to the tale, but the whole story has 

 also been denounced as an invention of the enemy, and at any 

 rate it has never been substantiated. 



The Count, then, has to be accepted as the sole head of the 

 stable which raised the reputation of the French Turf to the 

 highest possible pitch by meeting us and beating us on our own 

 ground with such ' clippers ' as Fille de I'Air and Gladiateur, 

 after he had threatened us and made us quake for a while at the 

 two-year-old doings of Hospodar. The Count too it was who 

 bred the majority of French horses with which his successor and 

 quasi-partner, M. Lefevre, whether racing as ' Mr. Lombard ' or 

 as the ' Tricolour ' personified, kept up the prestige of the French 

 thoroughbreds. Chamant had not then made itself a name in 

 the history of studs ; it was from Dangu that M. Lefevre re- 

 ceived Mortemer, by Compiegne, whom the Americans purchased 

 at a great price, and the high-priced sire Flageolet, by Plutus. 

 The Count's familiar colours began to reappear upon the race- 

 course in 1874, but it was not until the next year that the 

 Lagrange-Lefevre ' fusion,' as it has been called, represented by 



