'The Modern British Thoroughbred 55 



have as good a horse there as Mr. Ferguson's old horse St. George that got Lucian 

 Appleby, Aladdin and Grey Friar, but I am not even so sure of that. You hear a 

 great deal about how much money certain French-bred horses win in a single year, 

 but vou never hear about what class of horses they beat. Of course, the French breed 

 a great many good horses but they have never sent but two to England that were 

 strictly first-class Gladiateur and Verneuil unless Holocauste, who broke his leg 

 while running ahead of Flying Fox in the Derby of 1899, was one; and that he was 

 the first horse around Tattenham Corner, there can be no reasonable doubt. My own 

 belief is that the French horses are about like the early Virginia horses that ran four- 

 mile heats outside eight minutes just about fast enough to beat one another. Glad- 

 iateur or Isinglass, one or the other, was next to Ormonde amongst the triple winners 

 and I am not sure which, but the lanky Frenchman was whole town blocks ahead 

 of all such horses as Rock Sand, Lord Lyon and Diamond Jubilee and you might throw 

 in West Australian, too, for that matter. If the Ascot Cup of 1854 had been run at 

 the present scale of weights "the West" would have been third in the race. The 

 fact is that such French horses as Gladiateur, Vermouth, Mortemer, Boiard, Rayon 

 d'Or and Verneuil, just appear often enough to prove exceptions to the rule that Eng- 

 lish horses can beat French horses six days in every week. I say this in the face of 

 the stubborn fact that in the Grand Prix de Paris, Vermouth 'defeated Blair Athol 

 and Frontin beat St. Blaise. These beaten ones were both first-class as sires, but not 

 as race horses, for St. Blaise never won anything but the Derby that was worthy of 

 mention ; and as for Blair Athol he was beaten by The Miner (brother to Mineral, the 

 dam of Kisber and Wenlock) in the Great Yorkshire Stakes. Nor is there any reason- 

 able doubt that Blair Athol was scratched out of the Ascot Cup rather than meet Scot- 

 tish Chief and General Peel, both of whom he had already defeated in the Derby, even 

 after his owner had positive assurance that no representative of the all-aged division 

 would start in the race. St. Blaise and Blair Athol were great sires, beyond cavil, but 

 they were barely out of the third-class as performers. There are Derby winners and 

 Derby winners ; and the mere fact that a horse wins a Derby signifies nothing unless 

 he confirms his three-year-old winning by winning the Ascot or Doncaster Cup at 

 four or wins some other big race at three. 



I have said comparatively little about Partisan and his descendants as yet and 

 here I am on the last half of this long, but I trust not wearisome, chapter. Partisan 

 was foaled in 1811 and was by Walton out of Parasol (dam of the Oaks winner Pas- 

 tille) by Pot-8-os, from Prunella (second darn of Whalebone and Whisker and third 

 dam of Glencoe). Nothing of any great note showed from him till he was sixteen 

 years old when his son, Mameluke, won the Derby and was robbed out of the St. 

 Leger through the rascality of the starter who kept the horses at the post (in the in- 

 terest of the Bookmakers, of course) an hour and twenty minutes till Mameluke fret- 

 ted himself into fiddle-strings and Matilda, a very inferior daughter of Comus, won 

 the race. Partisan got a lot of speedy horses, in fact, he ranks next to Sultan in that 

 respect, but nothing else classic came from him till Patron won the Two Thousand for 

 him in 1829. From that to 1836 seemed a far cry but his really best year was then, 

 for his daughter Cyprian beat Destiny (who had won the One Thousand) and Mar- 

 malade in the Oaks of that year, in a common canter ; and in the Derby his two sons 

 Gladiator and Venison ran second and third respectively to the unbeaten Bay Middle- 

 ton, which was as good as winning one-third of the Derbys that have been run. But 

 his best son was Glaucus, foaled in 1830, who won the Ascot Gold Cup at 3 o'clock and 

 the Eclipse Foot at 4. In the Ascot Cup Glaucus defeated Rockingham (winner of 

 the previous year's St. Leger) and Samarcand, by Blacklock, all three carrying 114 

 pounds or 12 oounds less than horses of that age now carry in that race or any other 

 weight-for-age event in England. Some very good horses came from this line, espe- 

 cially in France whither Gladiator was exiled at nine years of age, being far-and-away 



