THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH 17 



Having regard to the importance of the race, it 

 was, no doubt, a reasonable request. I, however, 

 felt somewhat aggrieved, and there and then 

 came to the conclusion that the life of a jockey 

 had no charms for me. Virago won the Great 

 Metropolitan comfortably from Mr. Greville's 

 Muscovite and Mr. Parr's Jonathan Martin, who 

 had started equal second favourites. Jonathan 

 Martin, a three-year-old, received 21 lb. from 

 Virago. Mr. Greville, a former patron of John 

 Day, is stated to have come to him before the 

 race and told him that, according to their trial, 

 no three-year-old alive could beat Muscovite. 

 Day, however, assured him that Virago would 

 upset his calculations, and advised him to have 

 ;^5oo on her. 



It was hardly surprising that, after Virago 

 had won the ** double event," people began to 

 talk about her failure in the selling race at Shrews- 

 bury the previous November. The story goes 

 that Lord Derby went up to Day and asked, 

 ** How did you manage to get her in so well, 

 John ? " " I will tell you how I did it, my lord," 

 replied Day. " I ran her * big ' at Shrewsbury, 

 and told Wells to pull her up directly she was 

 beaten. Capital, wasn't it ? " 



Virago had a wonderful record that season, 

 for she raced eleven times and was only beaten 

 once. Her solitary failure was in a five-furlong 

 sprint at York, where, with odds of 2 to i laid on 



c 



