Isinglass
whose stud career is now regarded as rich in promise. Already it includes a winner of the St. Leger in Swynford.
La Flèche and Orme were three-year-olds when a two-year-old named Isinglass was gradually making a reputation which was somewhat grudgingly accorded him. Racegoers were curiously slow to recognise the merit of Isinglass, who, however, did everything that was asked of him as a two-yearold. He was one of those horses of whom it is said that they would "make a race with a donkey"; he did what was necessary, but wasted no exertion. That index of public opinion, the ring, continually showed that Isinglass was not properly appreciated; however, he won the New Stakes at Ascot, the Middle Park Plate, and went into winter quarters with an unbeaten certificate.
Next year he came out for the Two Thousand Guineas, which he won easily enough; he won the Derby, the St. Leger, and again throughout the season did everything that he was asked to do. That he could beat Ladas in the Prince of Wales' Stakes at the Newmarket July Meeting was, next year, deemed incredible by the supporters of Lord Rosebery's colt, but there was no sort of doubt about the result when it came to racing, and, in fact, Isinglass only once met with defeat in the Lancashire Plate, when he failed to give weight to Raeburn; this being generally attributed to the fact that he was a horse who hated to make his own running, and his little jockey, T. Loates, could not persuade him to go on in front.
It is no disparagement of Loates, in the face of the colt's succession of victories in which that jockey always rode him, to say that a stronger, longer-legged horseman would have shown Isinglass off to much better advantage than he was able to do. The result of his career, which ended with a victory in the Ascot Cup, was that Isinglass won in stakes the largest sum ever gained by a single horse, £57,185, the produce of eleven victories in the twelve races in which he took part. Details are here tabulated :- 1892. Two-Year-Old Plate دوو وو New Stakes, Ascot Middle Park Plate 1893. Two Thousand Guineas دو وو وو Newmarket Stakes The Derby The St. Leger . 1894. Princess of Wales' Stakes دو وو Eclipse Stakes Jockey Club Stakes 1895. Gold Cup, Ascot £ 196 2,006 2,375 4,250 3,795 5,525 5,300 10,911 9,285 11,302 2,250 £57,185 These figures do not accord with those generally given, but they are copied from a MS. given to the present writer by the owner of Isinglass.
It was very bad luck for Mr. C. D. Rose, the owner of Ravensbury, that his colt should have been born in the same year as Col. McCalmont's well-nigh invincible animal, as Ravensbury was constantly meeting him, and invariably running second except when he was third. Supposing that Isinglass had been out of the way, that his dam had not been bought for the nineteen sovereigns that were given for her, and that Isinglass had never existed, Ravensbury would have made a great name for himself. Isinglass had fine speed and was also a genuine stayer. Not a few critics place him only behind Ormonde and St.
Simon in the list of famous horses. Whilst, [RACING as just noted, the tendency always was to underrate Isinglass, there was a disposition to magnify the merits of Ladas, who misses a place in the list of winners of £20,000.
The scene of enthusiasm which broke out at Epsom when he won the Derby, Lord Rosebery, his owner, being Prime Minister at the time, will not soon be forgotten.
There is no reason to assume that Lord Rosebery ever rated him as really in the very first class, for it is known that during the two-year-old career of Velasquez his owner considered that the son of Donovan and Vista was the best animal he had ever owned. Ladas failed in the St. Leger, which was most unexpectedly won by Throstle, who was considered by her stable to be at least 21 lb. inferior to Match Box, whom she beat on the Doncaster Town Moor. Throstle was an exceedingly wayward animal. Her friends had hopes that she would beat Isinglass in the Jockey Club Stakes after her St. Leger victory, but their hopes would probably have been vain, even had she not bolted, as she did, in the course of the race. She gave her running truly enough at Sandown shortly afterwards in the Select Stakes, but never had the remotest chance with Best Man. Her owner, it is true, did not read the race in this way, and when the horses returned to the paddock remarked to Webb, who had ridden Best Man, "Three hundred yards further and we should have beaten you!" "Not if we had gone round the course three times more, Sir Frederick!" was Webb's reply. Next year Lord Rosebery won the Derby and St.
Leger again with Sir Visto, about whom there is no more to be said than that his owner was marvellously lucky.
The two-year-olds of 1895, however, were a very different class from the three-yearolds, Mr. Leopold de Rothschild's St. Frusquin and the Prince of Wales' Persimmon being far in advance of all the rest. Which was the better of the two will always remain a disputed point, for when St. Frusquin beat Persimmon in the Middle Park Plate, the Prince of Wales' colt was not at his best.
In the Derby next year Persimmon beat St. Frusquin by a neck. The two met shortly afterwards in the Princess of Wales' Stakes at Newmarket, when St. Frusquin had the better of it, though it is true that he carried 3 lb. less than his rival. The general impression of the Turf world as to the relative merits of the pair was, however, unmistakably shown by the St. Leger betting. St. Frusquin was here greatly preferred to the other; but unfortunately Mr. Leopold de Rothschild's colt gave way and RACING] was never able to run again after his success in the Eclipse, a piece of extraordinary good luck for the Prince of Wales, who thus found a most dangerous opponent removed from his path.
Whilst these things were happening Velasquez, carrying, it will be gathered from what has been said, the extreme confidence of his owner-one of the shrewdest and soundest judges known on the turf for a very great many years past-had cantered home for the New Stakes at Ascot, where he had only to beat Monterey, a son of Goldfinch and so a grandson of Ormonde. He sustained his reputation in the Prince of Wales' Stakes at Goodwood, and with odds of 100 to 9 on him beat a solitary opponent for the Champion Stakes at Doncaster. It was natural, therefore, that he should have started a very strong favourite for the Middle Park Plate, where odds of 5 to I were freely laid on him; but here he met with his first defeat, from Galtee More (Kendal-Morganette), a colt that had won three races out of four previously to this, without, however, making any great impression. Mornington Cannon, who rode Galtee More, said after the Middle Park, however, that when the two met again Galtee More would always beat the other, for whom excuses were made on the ground that he could not act in the very heavy going at Newmarket that autumn; but the jockey was right, and Galtee More, as history records, beat Velasquez in the Two Thousand and Derby, winning also the St. Leger, but failing to justify the confidence of his friends in the Cambridgeshire. In spite of his heavy weight he was supposed by ardent enthusiasts to be invincible, and could only finish tenth.
The Derby of 1898 ended in one of the greatest surprises known in its history.
The Two Thousand Guineas had been won by Mr. Wallace Johnstone's Disraeli, a son of Galopin, the race being somewhat peculiar, for a dead set was made against the winner, who, after having been backed at 9 to 2, was driven to 100 to 7. It chanced that I was intimately connected with the stable in which Disraeli was trained by the late John Dawson, but the colt's career has always been a mystery to me. He was ridden at Newmarket by Sam Loates, and at one time no more than 6 to 4 was on offer against him for the Derby, the second favourite being the late Duke of Devonshire's Dieudonné, who, it was generally believed, would fail to stay the course. The belief was correct, and it mightily amazed the racing world in general to see Mr.
Larnach's Jeddah win, starting at 100 to 1.
Something had been thought of him in the Spring, when he won the Craven Stakes; afterwards he ran badly, and though he has had some success at the stud, must be put down as a moderate specimen of a Derby winner.
There were to be vastly better things next year. Flying Fox, a bay son of Orme and Vampire, had won the New Stakes at Ascot, the Stockbridge Foal Stakes, and the Criterion, failing by a head to give 5 lb. to St. Gris in the Imperial Produce Stakes at Kempton, and failing also by a length and a half to give 3 lb. to Caiman in the Middle Park Plate; but he [Photograph by Sport & General.
PERSIMMON. was recognised as an exceptionally good colt, and as a three-year-old carried all before him, easily winning the half-dozen races for which he was started, these being the Two Thousand Guineas, the Derby, the Princess of Wales's Stakes, the Eclipse Stakes, the St. Leger, and the Jockey Club Stakes, the six yielding a comfortable total of £37,415. His races as a two-year-old were worth £2,675, and when sold at auction after the death of his owner, the late Duke of Westminster, he made the highest prices ever paid for a horse, 37,500 guineas.
G King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, was to resume his successes in the year 1900, and that to some extent unexpectedly. Persimmon's younger brother, Diamond Jubilee, had been well tried as a two-year-old, and on his first appearance, in the Coventry Stakes, started an even-money favourite, to be beaten into fourth place. Faith in him was, however, only slightly diminished, and he was again favourite for the July Stakes at Newmarket; but Watts, admirable jockey as he was, could do nothing with him; Diamond Jubilee behaved like a mad horse at the post, and finished last of the half-dozen starters. For the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Goodwood he was again favourite, and again beaten, and in the Boscawen, an even-money favourite once more, he only got home by a head from Mr. Wallace Johnstone's Paigle. He was second for the Middle Park Plate, as also for the Dewhurst, so that as a winner by the barest margin of one race out of six it seemed rash to predict any great career for him. Diamond Jubilee was a colt with an extraordinary temper, and appeared to take a violent dislike to Mornington Cannon, who was then riding for the Egerton House stable, a circumstance the more inexplicable for the reason that his methods as a horseman were always persuasive rather than coercive. So it was, however, and the apparently dangerous experiment was made of putting up the colt's stable boy, Herbert