CHAPTER XV 
Archer was in great form in 1881, and beat his own record of 
1880 by nearly a score of wins, while he still was nearly a dozen 
behind his total in 1878. He began this year's victories with 
an old friend, Tower and Sword, at Lincoln, and from that 
time onwards, throughout the season, race after race fell to his 
lot, the Derby and St. Leger on Iroquois being among the 
number. 
Added to these triumphs he left Robert the Devil in an easy 
manner in the Epsom Cup on Bend Or, steering him also in the 
City and Suburban and in the Champion Stakes. In this year 
also took place one of his most sensational wins, that on Peter 
in the Royal Hunt Cup ; and the outside price landed at Man- 
chester on Valour. It is not many riders who can boast of 
carrying off all the four principal races of a St. Leger week, but 
Archer accompHshed this on Petronel, Iroquois, and Mowerina, 
the first-named winning the Great Yorkshire Stakes and the 
Cup, Iroquois the St. Leger, and Mowerina the Portland Plate. 
Early in 1881 Mathew Dawson took Archer into partnership 
in the training establishment at Heath House, where the 
famous jockey had begun his apprenticeship not so very many 
years before as a small boy, and it was one of Archer's best 
years from the point of view of the big races he was successful in 
This was the year Archer scored his sensational Man- 
chester Cup victory on Valour. For months Sir John Astley 
had coveted Peter, a five-year-old by Hermit out of Lady 
Masham, and borrowing ;^2,5oo from a friend he bought the 
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