136 JOHN PORTER OF KINGSCLERE 



between them. I am bound to say that, so far 

 as my recollection of King Cophetua helps me, 

 the chance was an exceedingly remote one. He 

 did manage to win a handicap at Newmarket the 

 following spring, but that was the full measure of 

 his contribution to the stable's earnings. 



Pero Gomez, ridden by Jim Adams, won the 

 Middle Park Plate by half a length from Scottish 

 Queen, with Pretender third, three lengths away. 

 Wild Oats, to the dismay of Matt Dawson, was 

 hopelessly beaten a long way from home. A day 

 or two after the race Matt tried Wild Oats again, 

 and satisfied himself that the Middle Park Plate 

 form was, so far as he was concerned, all wrong. 

 The truth of the matter probably was that the 

 colt — a raw, overgrown youngster — ran green. 

 " Pero," wrote a contemporary chronicler, ** is 

 not a taking horse; he is upright in his pasterns, 

 goose-rumped, with short quarters." But the 

 same authority pertinently added that the man who 

 owned a better two-year-old might consider him- 

 self a fortunate individual. And that, indeed, 

 was so. It should be explained that Pretender 

 was giving Pero Gomez 7 lb. His performance 

 was, therefore, a fairly satisfactory one from the 

 point of view of his owners, Mr. John Johnstone 

 and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Jardine, 

 especially as his trainer, Tom Dawson of 

 Middleham, declared that he had not yet got 

 the colt thoroughly wound up. Pretender was 



