OLD JOHN DAY. 61 



Billy Day " on liim against Epirus and Caravan ; and on 

 Lord Georg-e's own cherished com-se at Goodwood he ran 

 home first, for both the Racing and Drawing-room Stakes. 

 There was yet better to come. There w^as to be one 

 brilliant flash before the display was over, and John 

 worked it np with Crucifix. She did all he asked her, 

 and that was no little— went triumphantly through her 

 two-year-old engageiijents — ^^just saved the Oaks — and 

 then 'Hhe chpper," though she kept her flag flying for a 

 while, was virtually out of commission. But so it ever 

 has been, and ever will be with our modern race-horses, 

 which only do more in a few months than their illus- 

 trious sires ever accomplished in a lifetime. Close a 

 thino- as this was, " Honest John " had a'ot his hand in 

 for the Oaks again the year previous, when Fulwar 

 Craven, being scarcely susceptible of his own trainer's 

 qualifications as a jockey, as evinced in the Derby, 

 changed John Day for him in the Oaks, and Deception 

 w^on as she liked. For a season or two more the tide 

 blew dead against the Bentinck venture, and at length 

 Lord George sat him down in melancholy mood, and said, 

 '- Mv racino- establishment costs me eio-ht thousand a 

 year, and I can't win a fifty." Ill fortune, as usual, led 

 on to disputes and dissensions, and my Lord and John 

 Day parted anything but the friends they should have 

 done. 



There was to be no integratio to the amantium irce. 

 On the contrary, the feud raged with all the proverbial 

 acerbity of a civil war. Lord George declared himself 

 not so much at variance with John as against the w^hole 

 of the Day family. But the father warmly espoused his 

 own people's cause, and the great battle of Gaper, as 

 historians will tell us hereafter, was fought on the downs 



