DEFEATS ACCOUNTED FOR. 155 
mentioned, become the more perplexing the more they are 
studied ; and even to the cognoscenti are little better than 
enigmas. It is not, I feel sure, possible that any one should 
give a satisfactory solution why the races so opposite in results 
ended as they did, or say which of the two results was the 
right one, or if neither or both were correct. 
There are instances again when defeat of highly-tried 
horses may be accounted for; as, for example, when Wimrod 
beat Fisherman and Marionette at Stockbridge in 1859. The 
owner of Fisherman gave me £25 and paid Nimrod’s stake 
(410) to make running for him. This the rider of Marionette 
also knew, and fisherman and Marionette waited together 
so far behind that they never could get up and were easily 
defeated, both being about two stone better than the horse 
that was enabled to beat them through the circumstances 
described. A singular case of this sort took place not many 
years ago at the same spot, when odds of fifty to one were 
actually laid on a horse which waited such a long way behind 
his stable companion, a mare, that he could never catch her, 
and so was defeated by a head. These are mistakes oc- 
casioned by the want of foresight and common prudence on 
the part of the jockeys: and who knows how many other 
mistakes are made by them in a different way in large fields, 
that are not detected ? 
I have elsewhere said that horses are not always well 
though they may appear to be in the most perfect health ; 
and others in their races meet with disappointments which if 
known at the time would account for much of their in-and- 
out running. But surely there must be at the bottom of all 
this extraordinary and inconsistent running, some all-powerful 
cause (which, though unknown, is certain in its effect) that 
time may help to unravel for us. 
