A HISTORY OF SURREY 



line through Lord Clifden and Petrarch : 

 among these descendants was The Bard, who 

 will be remembered as having made a good 

 race with Ormonde in the Derby of 1886. 

 A third line is in existence which came 

 through Waxy's son Whisker, who won the 

 Derby for the Duke of Grafton in the year 

 of the battle of Waterloo. 



The Epsom Derby has amongst its roll of 

 winners many great horses whose names are 

 indissolubly linked with the history of the 

 Turf, and as these, each and all, made their 

 greatest mark at Epsom, they give to the 

 county of Surrey an importance, from a turf 

 standpoint, which it would hardly otherwise 

 possess. 



In 1794 Dxdalus, the least fancied of four 

 runners, beat the smallest field which has ever 

 gone to the post for the race. In 1797 the 

 race was won, for the only time in its exist- 

 ence, by an unnamed horse, the colt by Fidget 

 out of Sister to Pharamond; and in 1801 a 

 filly was for the first time successful. This 

 was Sir Charles Bunbury's Eleanor, who 

 started favourite and who on the following 

 day won the Oaks, thus completing a double 

 event, an achievement which was not re- 

 peated until the Malton trained Blink Bonny 

 won both races in 1857. ^^ 1809 the 

 winner was Pope by Waxy, who started at 

 20 to I and beat the odds -on favourite 

 Wizard by a neck. There was nothing very 

 remarkable about this Derby, but a descrip- 

 tion of the race which appears in Orton's 

 Turf Annali shows the changes which have 

 since taken place — 



Salvator took the lead and kept it until they 

 turned the Tattenham Corner, when Wizard 

 passed him, and kept the lead whilst within a few 

 strides of the winning post, where T. Goodisson, 

 the rider of Pope, who lay close by him, made one 

 run serve for all, and won by a n'^ck. What was 

 most remarkable Goodisson had only one bet, 

 which was 80 to 10 against Pope. He rode his 

 horse with much skill and judgment, and gave 

 great satisfaction to all present. 



We need hardly write that it is many 

 years since jockeys were forbidden to bet, 

 and were such a report floated now, and the 

 truth of it proved, the rider would at once 

 forfeit his licence. 



Another son of the 1793 Derby winner 

 was successful in the following year, when 

 Whalebone 'took the lead, was never headed, 

 and won easy.' This horse, although a good 

 all-round performer, was a very little one, 

 standing only half an inch over fifteen hands, 

 and after his running days he was sold very 

 cheaply, it being thought that he was not 



likely to prove a stud success. Never were 

 prognostications more rudely upset, for he 

 established through his son Camel the line of 

 Touchstone and through his son Sir Hercules 

 the line of Birdcatcher. It is probable that 

 it was the horse's appearance that caused him 

 to be so disregarded from the breeder's point 

 of view, for he was described by an authority 

 of the day as ' the lowest, longest and most 

 double-jointed horse, with the best legs and 

 worst feet I ever saw in my life,' He sired 

 three Derby winners, or only one less than 

 his sire Waxy. 



In i8i6 the Duke of York won the race 

 with Prince Leopold, and we are told that 

 His Royal Highness backed his colt freely 

 and won some thousands on the race. In 

 1818 it was won by Mr. Thornhill's Sam, 

 who had been foaled on the same day of the 

 same month three years before and was then 

 exactly three years old — or about two months 

 younger than the average Derby winner. In 

 1822 the Duke of York won for the second 

 time, with Moses by Whalebone, and in 

 1828 the Duke of Rutland's Cadland and 

 Mr. Petre's The Colonel ran a dead heat; 

 in the run off Cadland won by half a length. 

 The following quaint description of the de- 

 ciding heat has been handed down — 



Cadland again set off at good sound running, 

 being well looked after by the Colonel, and so they 

 went to the Chains, where the latter made play 

 and got up. A desperate contest followed and 

 lasted to the last few yards, when Cadland won by 

 half a length. 



In 1830 the celebrated jockey-trainer W. 

 Chifney won the race with Priam, ridden 

 by Samuel Day, and in 1834 the famous 

 Plenipotentiary was successful. In his racing 

 days this horse was a veritable wonder. 

 Wildrake in his book on English thorough- 

 breds described him as ^ the crack of his 

 day, as well as of every other, a horse such 

 as we shall ne'er look upon the like again, 

 the unequalled, the ill-used Plenipo.' Some 

 years later Taunton in Portraits of Celebrated 

 Racehorses wrote — 



We find from contemporary testimony, that 

 Plenipo occupied a station of preeminence never 

 before attained by any of his predecessors. Chil- 

 ders, doubtless, was a phenomenon, and the won- 

 ders of Eclipse have come down to us writh higher 

 claims to authenticity ; but if speed be the test of 

 superiority in a racer, then we are bound to draw 

 the conclusion that at a period when such distances 

 as six and four miles were the ordinary trials of 

 excellence, a certain amount of power and sub- 

 stance was absolutely a necessary element which 

 does not enter into the breeding arrangements 



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