304 ^^HE Derby 



added the Middle Park and Dewhnrst Plates to his 

 score, and to search elsewhere for the winner of next 

 year's Derby seemed absurd — it very often does so at this 

 time of the year, and that is one of the reasons why 

 the ' ring ' grow rich. iVll seemed to be well with him, 

 indeed, far on into the season. The horses had actually 

 gone to the post for the Two Thousand Guineas — or it 

 should rather be said were on their way thither — when 

 Tom Cannon discovered a curious tenderness in the 

 horse's jaw, and it soon appei red that his mouth had 

 been severely injured — as John Porter, his trainer, sup- 

 posed at the time by the boy who looked after the colt 

 having angrily jerked his bridle to keep him quiet, or to 

 punish him for not being quiet, while being dressed over. 

 The poor beast could not take hold of his bit ; doubtless 

 he was suffering and out of health, and the Duke of 

 Portland reaped the benefit with Ayrshire. Twice that 

 year the Oaks winner, the beautiful filly Seabreeze, had 

 the best of the Duke of Portland's colt. She beat him 

 out of a place in the St. Leger, and a fortnight later, 

 in the Lancashire Plate, he ran second to her. He 

 was a good horse, though with no pretensions to be 

 considered a ' smasher, ' in popular phraseology, and 

 that he should have won close on 36,000/. during his turf 

 career was in a very great degree a result of wonderful 

 luck. 



At this time, indeed, the Duke of Portland's luck was 

 emphatically in the ascendant ; for whilst Ayrshire was 

 carrying off the three-year-old race, Donovan started 

 the season by winning the Brocklesby, and had an 

 extraordinarily successful time of it in the two-year-old 

 stakes, marred only by two defeats, when Chittabob — an 

 exceptionally good colt, who was never quite right during 



