SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



insignificant race at the Epsom Spring meet- 

 ing. In 1861 Colonel Townley's Kettle- 

 drum, bred by Mr. James Cookson of 

 Neasham and sold as a yearling at Don- 

 caster, was lucky to win as he only just 

 got home in front of Dundee, who broke 

 down some distance from home, and whose 

 fetlock was touching the ground when he 

 was pulled up after passing the post. In 

 1862 Caractacus, an outsider who started at 

 40 to 1, pulled through ; his owner, a veter- 

 inary surgeon, had so little expectation of his 

 horse winning that he did not even go to 

 Epsom to see him run, and when the news 

 of his victory was brought to his house, he 

 was discovered in bed. In 1863 Mr. R. C. 

 Naylor's Macaroni beat the subsequent St. 

 Leger winner. Lord Clifdcn, after a desperate 

 race, and in the following year Blair Athol, 

 one of the best of Derby winners of all time, 

 justified his high lineage by his easy victory. 

 This great horse was a son of Stockwell and 

 the Derby winner Blink Bonny, and was bred 

 and owned by the late Mr. William I'Anson 

 of Malton. He never ran before the Derby, 

 and he was by no means favourite at the 

 start, but he was quite an exceptional horse, 

 and he won the St. Leger quite as easily as 

 the Epsom race. 



In 1865 the Derby was won for the first 

 time by a foreign horse. Count Lagrange's 

 Gladiateur. The same owner had won the 

 Oaks in the previous year with Fille de I'Air, 

 and he now completed a double event, own- 

 ing in Gladiateur a plain and almost ugly, 

 but exceptionally good colt, who, like West 

 Australian, won the Two Thousand and 

 St. Leger as well as the great Epsom race. 

 Gladiateur was not a great stud success, nor 

 was Mr. (afterward Sir Richard) Sutton's 

 Lord Lyon, by Stockwell, who won the 

 great event in 1866, and who, like his pre- 

 decessor, won the triple crown of Guineas, 

 Derby and Leger. 



Hermit's Derby in 1867 was in many 

 ways a most sensational one. The race was 

 won in a snowstorm, and Hermit, who had a 

 bad habit of breaking blood vessels, was an 

 extreme outsider, the long price of 66 to 

 1 being offered against him at the start. 

 Yet he won easily enough, in the colours of 

 Mr. Henry Chaplin, and some very big bets 

 were landed by his owner, by the late Captain 

 Machell, who had the management of Mr. 

 Chaplin's horses, and by others connected 

 with the stable. After winning the Derby 

 Hermit had a somewhat chequered career as 

 a racehorse, but at the stud he was most 

 successful, his sons and daughters winning 

 no less than ;^35i,i2i in stake money in 



England alone, and further large sums in 

 France. He sired Derby winners in Shot- 

 over and St. Blaise, and Oaks winners in 

 Thebais and Lonely; but his stock were 

 not as a rule great stayers. 



In 1868 Blue Gown won for Sir Joseph 

 Hawley his fourth and last Derby, and in 

 the following year the moderate Pretender 

 just scraped home after a desperate race with 

 Pero Gomez. It is worthy of note that 

 Blue Gown was the last Yorkshire trained 

 horse to secure Epsom honours. Kingcraft, 

 who woa for the late Lord Falmouth the 

 first of his two Derbys in 1870, was not a 

 very high class winner ; but Favonius, the 

 winner in 1871, was above the average Derby 

 champion in point of merit, and he carried 

 the colours of Baron Meyer Rothschild, who 

 won the Oaks two days later with Hannah, 

 which mare was also successful in the One 

 Thousand Guineas and St. Leger. Indeed 

 the Rothschild stud had an extraordinarily 

 successful season in 1871, when the staying 

 of ' Follow the Baron ' was in every one's 

 mouth. Favonius at the stud was a partial 

 success ; he sired Sir Bevys, who gave George 

 Fordham his only winning mount in the race 

 in 1879. 



Favonius was by the Sweatmeat horse 

 Parmesan. The same sire was also respon- 

 sible for the Derby winner in 1872, when 

 Mr. Henry Savile's Cremorne scraped home 

 by a head from the outsider Pell Mell. Cre- 

 morne was a good horse and a most consistent 

 runner, and he would probably have won the 

 Derby by many a length, but his rider, Maid- 

 ment, never saw Chaloner and Pell Mell, who 

 were on the Upper Ground, until they were 

 close at home, and Maidment was only just 

 able to set his horse going again. Cremorne 

 won the Ascot cup in the following year. 



Doncaster, the hero of the 1873 Derby, 

 was bred by Sir Tatton Sykes, and was sold 

 as a yearling at Doncaster for 950 guineas, 

 his purchaser being Mr. James Merry, a 

 Scottish ironmaster, who had won the race 

 with Thormanby thirteen years before, and 

 who enjoyed a fair measure of success on the 

 turf. The colt was catalogued ' All Heart 

 and no Peel,' but his name was changed to 

 Doncaster, and he never appeared until he 

 started for the Two Thousand of his year, 

 in which he was easily beaten. He turned 

 the tables on his .Newmarket conquerors at 

 Epsom, and earned fame at the stud by siring 

 Bend Or, who in turn was the sire of 

 Ormonde. 



George Frederick, who won the Derby 

 for Mr. Cartwright in 1874, had a short 

 career on the turf, and came in a moderate 



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