324 THE ENGLISH TURF 



to the end he just retained that same advantage. I have 

 seen " Tommy " Loates ride many and many a good race, 

 both before and since, but in this particular one he, in my 

 humble opinion, excelled himself. I have never witnessed 

 a finer piece of riding. 



That St. Frusquin went amiss after winning the Eclipse 

 Stakes, but before the St. Leger, is common knowledge. 

 He never ran again, so the vexed question of supremacy 

 between him and Persimmon was not fairly settled, though 

 Persimmon of course comes out with the better record. 

 He won the St. Leger and other races as a three-year-old, 

 and in the Ascot Cup of the following year proved himself 

 a stayer of the first water. No one, I should say, ever saw 

 an Ascot Cup won in such fashion. Though there were 

 only four runners, the other three were horses of note, all 

 of whom had distinguished themselves in the past. Love 

 Wisely, for instance, had beaten the French horse Omnium II., 

 Florizel II., the Derby winner Sir Visto, that beautiful and 

 very high-class mare Laodamia, and the champion mile handi- 

 cap horse of the day, Victor Wild, in the Ascot Cup of the 

 previous year. And as proof that this good-looking if 

 rather small son of Wisdom had not deteriorated, he three 

 months later won the 10,000 Jockey Club Stakes at 

 Newmarket, easily defeating Velasquez, Chelandry, Goletta, 

 and others. Winkfield's Pride, another of the three, had won 

 the Cambridgeshire and the Lincolnshire Handicap, the 

 last-named race with 8 st. 9 Ibs. in the saddle, and Limasol, 

 the third runner, had been an easy winner of the Oaks a 

 fortnight before. It will thus be seen that Persimmon was 

 opposed by a field that was good in quality if not numeri- 

 cally strong ; but the big horse smashed them all up as 

 if they had been selling platers, and won just as far as 

 Watts allowed him to do. From the commencement the 

 race was run at a cracking pace, and down the hill into 

 the Swinley Bottom Winkfield's Pride fairly got the better 

 of Cannon, and travelled on as fast as his legs could carry 

 him. All this time Persimmon waited behind, but the 

 moment the straight was reached he came right round on 

 the outside and galloped past his opponents as if they 



