300 The Derby 



moderate. He \Yon a little race, beating nothing, at 

 Goodwood, was afterwards defeated by a third-rate colt 

 called Cormeille, and could only get eighth in the St. 

 Leger, Queen Adelaide finishing fifth. The filly, of whom 

 such great things were expected — and w^ith reason — never 

 won again ; eight times she failed as a three-year-old, five 

 times next season, and thrice the year afterwards. No 

 one could have supposed, after her notable victory in the 

 Dewhurst, that she would run sixteen races during the 

 next three seasons, and fail in all ! That is the uncer- 

 tainty of the turf, which, for some incomprehensible 

 reason, is called ' glorious.' 



When Lord Hastings's Melton first came out, in the 

 New Stakes at Ascot, he was supposed to be inferior to 

 his stable companion, the Duke of Portland's Langwell ; 

 but the race effectually showed the incorrectness of that 

 estimate, and Melton, though beaten a head by Luminary 

 in the July Stakes, w^on the Middle Park Plate and the 

 Criterion, leaving oft* at the end of the season with a high 

 reputation. 



During the winter of 1884-5 a doubt as to whether 

 Melton would stand began to prevail in the stable, un- 

 pleasant suspicions of a weak sinew having begun to 

 develop. Special interest therefore attached to his 

 reappearance, which was in the Payne Stakes at the 

 Newmarket Second Spring Meeting. There were four 

 runners, and as soon as they came into sight, it was 

 quickly evident that IMelton did not mind galloping. He 

 w^on his race, and then the question arose whether he 

 could beat Paradox ; for though this son of Sterling and 

 Casuistry had only just won the Two Thousand by a 

 head from Crafton, Archer admitted that he had ridden 

 a very bad race— in fact, but for something very like a 



