24 JOHN PORTER OF KINGSCLERE 



St. Leger. In between he won the Gold Vase at 

 Ascot and a race at Stockbridge. After the St. 

 Leger he won a handicap at Newmarket, and ran 

 unplaced in the Cambridgeshire. I remember 

 him as a heavier and plainer-looking horse than 

 Stockwell, and as also showing less quality than 

 his brother. One morning when I was riding 

 Rataplan along Lee Farm Bottom — a track so 

 winding that you could not see far ahead — we 

 suddenly came upon a flock of sheep. Despite 

 my efforts, Rataplan refused to pull up, galloped 

 right through the flock, and killed two or three of 

 the sheep. The morning of the day he won at 

 Stockbridge he slipped his head collar and 

 muzzle, gorged himself with some hay that was 

 lying in his box, and drank all the water he found 

 in some buckets I 



Rataplan's half-brother. King Tom (by Harka- 

 way), was, in his early two-year-old days in 1853, 

 trained for his breeder, Mr. Thellusson, by 

 Wyatt, who lived at Myrtle Grove, Patching, 

 a farm half a mile away from Michel Grove. 

 Mr. Saunders Davies is now living at Myrtle 

 Grove. Wyatt sometimes brought King Tom 

 over to our gallops to be exercised, and on these 

 occasions I used to ride him. He was a big, 

 impressive-looking bay horse, whereas his half- 

 brothers, Stockwell and Rataplan, were both 

 chestnuts. It was during the Doncaster Meeting 

 of 1853 that Baron Rothschild agreed to give 



