DERBYANA. 225 



Touchstone was not a Derby winnor, but be was 



a good animal, and won the St. Leger at Doncaster ; 



this horse was G^reatly prized by his noble 



Lord West- , , P i i r 



minsters Price owncr, and liis answer to a would - be 

 for a Horse, p^yg^jr^gcj. ^vho was dssirous of securing 

 the colt for Germany was : ' A German principality 

 could not buy Touchstone.' 



No sooner had the Duke of Westminster's horse 

 won the Derby, than there arose a rumour that Bend 

 TheBeiKiOr C>r ' was a wrong one,' and would bo 

 Scare. objected to. As there is never smoke 

 without fire, so there was truth to a degree in the 

 report. What was asserted was that the animal which 

 won the race was not the horse it was represented to 

 be, and would, therefore, as ' a changeling,' have to be 

 disqualified. It (the rumour or assertion, or what it 

 may be called) proved a false alarm, the babbling 

 of a garrulous old stableman, and within a few days 

 it was seen there was ' nothing in it '\ but had it 

 proved true, and led to the disqualfication of Bend Or 

 it would have been a fine thing for the backers of 

 Robert the Devil. Some turfites maintain that horses 

 have been changed before now, and that animals have 

 more than once won important races that, as Polly 

 Eccles says in the play of ' Caste,* * had no business to 

 win.' 



At one period in its history, a case of suicide in 



connection with the Blue Ribbon was frequently 



j)^j.i,y reported ; many of the deaths, however, 



Suicjues. -which were so recorded, might easily have 

 been traced to other causes. The first Derby suicide 

 that is recorded, so far as is known to the writer, is 



15 



