ISO THE BLUE RIBBON OE THE TURF. 



career. Thin_qs Avere done openly on the turf by the 

 Count, we were told, which were the reverse of straight- 

 forward ; he certainly did not race in a spirit of 

 chivalry, and more than once the running of his horses 

 provoked, a popular outbreak. Count de Lagrange 

 raced in the grandest possible fashion. In his best 

 days he was a giant on the turf, and his stud must 

 have cost him for several years an enormous expendi- 

 ture. According to Mr. Corlett, his racing field was a 

 large one ; it was bounded by Newcastle on the north, 

 and Marseilles on the south ; Baden-Baden on the 

 east, and Brest on the west. Such a stable as his had 

 never before been known, his training and incidental 

 expenses having on occasion been as much as £50,000 

 a year. Such a man could not afford to throw away a 

 single chance — he would require, in order to meet 

 such a vast expenditure, a good deal more than what 

 he could obtain in stakes, even when the race was 

 a Derby or St. Leger. In 1865 he won £25,000 in 

 stakes alone, and probably for>r times that sum would 

 not represent the favourable balance presented in the 

 pages of his betting-book. 



Gladiateur's career on the turf brought his owner a 

 sum of over £30,000, but in his day the Count had other 

 horses which put money in his purse, notably Fille de 

 I'Air and Chamant, the best animal, probably, that 

 ever his stud contained. In 1S76 that? horse was the 

 hero of the Middle Park and Dewhurst Plates, and in 

 the following year he would, in all probability, had ho 

 not broken down a few days before it w^as run, have 

 credited his owner with a second * Blue Ribbon.' His 

 victory in the Two Thousand Guineas undoubtedly 



