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DIOMEDS EXASPERATING RACING FAILURES FAILURESThere There is a curious history atached to Diomed the winner of the first Derby In the year following that event lie started for the principal stakes at Nottingham with long odds on him and was beaten by Lord Grosvonors Fortitude a horse of far inferior antecedents Some nasty remarks were made by the losers on the occasion and Sir Charles Bunburyhad a row with his jockey which ended in the mans dismissal In the same year however Diomed was beaten at Newmarket by the horse that had come in second to him in the first Derby and in disgust Sir Charles refused to let him run in 1782 Next year Diomed started seven times but won only once and falling lame was put out of training and sent to the stud where he was the sire of many illustrious colts and fillies Fi ¬ nally he was sold for fifty guineas to an American who shortly after landing him in the States sold lim for a thousand And Diomed who lived to tlie age of forty became the father of the American turf for there is scarcely a famous trotter or racer from Florida to Maine that does not trace its des ¬ cent from the winner of the first Derby As an instance Foxhall who in 1SS1 won the Grand Prix do Paris the Ccsarewitch and the Cambridgeshire was a descendant of the mighty Lexington one of the descendants of Diomed
