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REMINISCENCES OF GREAT YOUNGSTERS. Have we a great two-year-old this year at present revealed? Knutsford might seem to fill the part but for his defeat by Dansellon; and Margarethal, were she not accounted behind Knutsford. Yet we have seen great horses beaten as two-year-olds, and by moderate animals, too. St. Frusquin succumbed, to Teufel, Flying Fox to Caiman and Ard Patrick was beaten for the Dewhurst Plate by Game Chick, which, though far from moderate, had no pretensions to stay seven-eighths. So it may be that .Knutsford will reassert himself, but in the meanwhile no one can claim to have a single two-year-old whose greatness has been clearly demonstrated beyond question, wheras in 1891, the year when I first began to write for The Sportsman, there were five great two-year-olds in the Kingselere Stable aloiie, viz., Windgall, Gold Finch, Watercress, La Fleche and Orme. I remember them all well; AVind-gall, an upstanding, bloodlike bay, with black points, the best horse ever sired by Galliard. He won the Spring Two-Year-Old Plate at Kempton and the Breeders Plate at the Newmarket Second Spring, as also the Newmarket October Handicap and the Liverpool Autumn Cup the following year; but Windgall was the outsider of the five. Goldfinch was one of the most brilliant of them; a tallisli chestnut, of rather sombre shade, inclined to lightness of back rib and middle-piece, but by no means lathy. He was a smashing good two-year-old, and would have won the Two Thousand Guineas of his year easily enough had he not given way in a foreleg coming down bushes hill. By Ormonde out of Thistle dam of Common and Tros-tle, he fully justified his breeding both on the turf and later at the stud. Watercress was a really elephantine colt which, rightly enough, was not asked to do much as a two-year-old, but was, nevertheless, in the same class, or nearly so, at that age with Orme and La Fleche, for all threo were tried at different times with Massacre, which gave them fourteen pounds and each one beat him, the longest margin being onlv a length and the shortest a neck. It was on Watercress that John Osborne rode his last race in public, when the big son of Springfield finished third for La Fleches St. Leger, but neither he nor La Fleche had any business to beat Orme that day, though Watercress had bustled up the son of Angelica for the Sussex Stakes over the New Mile at Goodwood. That, however, was something of a mischance, for Orme had been eased in his work after his first Eclipse Stakes, his trainer thinking that the Goodwood race would be a simple matter for him. But in those days there were various interests at Kingselere, and the fiat went forth, a day or two before the Sussex Stakes, that Watercress should oppose Orme, which he did to such purpose that the latter had much ado to struggle home. Poor Orme! He was a really brilliant horse, better even than La Fleche, as he proved clearly enough when they were four years old; a hard, clean sort, with great depth and superb shoulders, he was balanced to perfection. He had a rather light, straight neck, with a good old-fashioned head; wide hips, with a droop from the dock, leanish flanks, with no great depth of back ribs, such as his son, Flying Fox, had. Moreover, Flying Fox had a shorter neck, clothed with thunder, so to sneak, and was in this respect more like his graudsife, Ormonde. Ilowbeit, the formation of Orme was such and so balanced that I question if a finer mover was ever seen in action. La Fleche, too, was a perfect racing machine, and there was nlenty of size and strength about her, too. though the myth that she- was a little one, will, I suppose, always survive the truth. She certainly grew to 10 hands, and she was not under. 15.3 hands when she ran for the Derby, which she ought to have won. Enough of these, however, for I do not wish to be mlloried as a laudator temporis acti, but it is legitimate to ask where in the whole of the country now can we find five such two-year-olds as those which I have mentioned, all of whiph in 1S91 were in the Kingselere stable, and in the following year worried John Porter almost to death by their vicissitudes. Turning ui an old file of "St. Stephens Review," I find that in the issue of June 21, 1890, I wrote as follows about the then yearling La Fleche: "As to the sister to Memoir, I can only say that had I 4,000 guineas handy I would gladly disburse j them now, and take my chance of a profit on the sale day. This is as grand a filly as a man can imagine. Had her sister not won the Oaks were she an unfashionably-bred oue altogether still she would of necessity make a very high price. As it is, there is no knowing what she may fetch. A magnificent filly in every respect, she stands 15 hands now, and is positively an improvement on Memoir. Let anyone who wants to make a fancy bet risk whatever he likes on this being the highest-priced one ever sold in England." That was a fairly intelligent anticipation of events, it must be admitted, and it is specially interesting where it gives the height of La Fleche as a Juno yearling. In the same string of royal yearlings with La Fleche was Sierra sister to Sainfoin, which later on gained fame as the dam of Sundridge. She was knocked down for 1,000 guineas at the sale, on account of the Prince of Wales, but she had some nasal trouble, and he would not have her. Two years earlier Sainfoin and Memoir had been sold as yearlings from this same stud, and it is the only time the Derby winner and the Oaks winner were in one string of sale yearlings. W. Allison in London Sportsman.
