TOD SLOAN 



bringing about an extraordinary temperament, just 

 as in human beings lunacy can be the result of 

 marriages in the same family. As a matter of fact 

 no one will ever make me think differently. I don't 

 know whether a greater study of the thoroughbred 

 will ever exactly enable men to know horses and get 

 such remedies for various troubles as to make a 

 perfectly tractable animal, but it is to be done ; I 

 am convinced of it. 



After the start for that Jubilee I never had the 

 slightest doubt about the result and for weeks after, in 

 fact months after, I can remember discussing the 

 horse which Huggins had been fortunate enough to 

 acquire, and which America was lucky enough to have 

 afterwards as a sire horse. If someone had only got 

 exactly to know what was the matter with Knight of 

 the Thistle I am sure that he could have carried any 

 weights and beaten the very best in training. Many 

 who read this will remember all about him, and those 

 who were connected with his early training may have 

 something more to say than I have. In the Hunt 

 Cup later (in 1899) he carried 9-2 and I finished third 

 on him behind the mighty Eager, and a three-year-old, 

 Refractor, who was only putting up 6-3. By the way 

 there was a Scottish firm who after the Jubilee started 

 a new brand of whisky called the Ivnight of the 

 Thistle Blend and sent me a big quantity of it, some 

 of which I gave away and the rest — well, I drank it 

 myself. 



I am not going into all the races which I rode in 

 between the Lincolnshire and the Jubilee and then 

 on to the big events at Epsom and Ascot, but I shall 

 dip into my memory where something of more im- 

 portance than usual suggests itself. I was doing as 

 well as in the two previous autumns ; I had made 



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