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11 1 - ... ST. BLAISE TRIED AGAIN. "Among: the entries to the Hopeful Stakes of 1906 to be run at Saratoga are a half dozen which are of peculiar interest," says the Morning Telegraph of Dec. 21. "They are the nominations of the anticipated produce of the union of the once great St. BJaise with Lady Violet, Ortegal, Fetish, Souveraine, Souriante and St. Eudora. "When Mr. August Belmont purchased the old horse at the dispersal sale of the Fairview Stud it was assumed that the taking back of the Derby winner to the "Nursery was the ensuring of a home where his later years might be passed in comfort. The phenomenal success of his first crop in this country and his sensational sale to Mr. Charles Reed for 00,000 had been followed by years of comparative failure. Many reasons were offered in explanation, the most general being that the matrons at Fairview were not so suited to him, as were the Nursery mares, and that some theories held by his owner were not conducive to the best results, however admirable they might be as illustrating the tenacity of their holder to his convictions. "There were others, thoughtless or superficial, who pointed out that St. Blaise at the stud was but a brilliant flash, as they argued he had been as a racehorse, forgetting that, however disappointing his career after he had won the Derby and finished a good second in the Grand Prix, he certainly had been tried highly enough for the Derby to justify his owner in believing he could win. In that trial, carrying 11S pounds, he beat Shotover, with 124 up, six lengths. This was the year after Shotover had won the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby. Geheimniss, also a four-year-old and an Oaks winner, was also in the trial, and finished a length behind Shotover. It cannot be conceived that both these great mares were off, or, if they were, that they would have been used for trial horses with a Derby candidate on the eve of the most important engagement in his career. Still, this notwithstanding, St, Blaise, for some reason his stable saying muscular rheumatism was not a success after the two great races in which he achieved his only fame as a racehorse, and this probably accounted for the elder Mr. August Belmont being able to induce his owner to sell him. He paid 5,-000 for him."
