Because Lord Astor has not won a Derby, though five of his horses have run second for the race, he has often: been described as an unlucky owner. That is far from the truth, as he himself would most readily admit. For 30 years the horses he has bred and raced have been consistently successful. Nearly all have been defendants of the three mares with which he founded his stud, including Conjure, which he bought for a small sum in his Oxford days. Among Conjure's produce was Winkipop, winner of the One Thousand Guineas of 1910. Her daughter, Plymstock, is the dam of an Oaks winner in Pennycomequick, whose offspring include Quick Ray, one of the best four-year-olds of this year, and Golden Penny.
Lord Astor won a war-substitute Oaks with Sunny Jane-in 1917, and has taken the Oaks at Epsom four times, with Pogrom, Saucy Sue, Short Story and Pennycomequick. That record of itself affords substantial compensation for his "near misses" in the Derby, while his five winners of the Eclipse Stakes in 20 years is a unique achievement. No living owner has won these two races as often as has Lord Astor.
Buchan's second success in 1920 was ili effect a solatium for his disqualification at Ascot, where he finished first for the Gold Cup after interfering with Tangiers, to whom the race was awarded. Craigan Oran won the Eclipse in the following year after being narrowly defeated by Humorist for the Derby. Lord Astor's Stakes winner was Saltash, in 1923—an unexpected victory on the part of a horse whose place among the winners of this famous race flatters him. There has been one other Eclipse Stakes winner in the same colours since. Rhodes Scholar triumphed" in 1936, but failed dismally the following year, at which period his preparation was not perhaps free from particular anxiety.
The few inches by which Golden Myth beat Tamar for the Eclipse of 1922 breaks what otherwise would be a sequence of victories over five years for Lord Astor. Tamar had been second for the Derby but my lasting admiration for the performance of Golden Myth in that race is inspired by factors apart from the strength of the opposition. A little more than a month previously Golden Myth had won the Gold Vase (2 miles) and the Gold Cup (2% miles) in 48 hours at Ascot.
Usually, when a horse has gained a success sion of victories over various distances, the length of the courses to which he is submitted has been gradually increased. Golden Myth, having received a thorough preparation for severe long-distance races of the highest class—an experience calculated in most cases to take the edge off a horse's speed—was brought back, in a few weeks, to a mile-and-a-quarter test demanding speed of the highest class, and he triumphed.
French Butchers Buy Valuable Horses I hear, but hate been unable to confirm, that Djebel was removed to comparative safety before the Nazis overran the greater part of France. Many horses, worth in normal times £1,000 or more, were sold by Chantilly trainers to the butchers for a few hundred francs each when it Was found that conditions permitted the removal of only a small section of the best animals to the studs in Normandy and elsewhere. In nearly every case, however, these establishments are now in enemy occupation.
A friend for long prominently connected with racing in France tells me that before he left Bayonne as a refugee for an English port he saw Mr, E. Esmond, who has raced on large scale in England, France and India. Mr. Esmond was waiting stoically at Bayonne for the chance to get to Spain, from which he hoped Portugal would be his next step. M. Martinez de Hoz, another famous owner in French racing, was also at Bayonne at that ime. "If I can get to Lisbon," he told my I shall go to the A formant did not bring any news of Pere; ter, who succeeded his cousin, the late F Carter, at Mill Cottage, Chantilly, but he had some reason to think that Harry Count, whose frequent visits to England up to the spring meetings at Newmarket this year were often successful, had reached the unoccupied part of France. I hope soon to have reassuring news of Carter and his wife, who are so much liked by those English race-goers who know them or have enjoyed their hospitality at Mill Cottage, and trust that my news about Count will be confirmed.
I hope it was a simple faith in an earl successful termination of hostilities that i the stewards of the Jockey Club to issue that recent statement which expressed their hope that "some racing would be possible in the At the same time the Aga Khan has isposed of all his yearling colts at his Irish stud for 400 guineas each, which is perhaps only a tenth of the value the pre-war market would have set on them. As a shrewd assessment of the immediate future of racing, I prefer the view evidently taken by the Aga Khan, to the optimism which the stewards express. Any public racing, ay I write, would be scandalous, and it is to be assumed that all who give serlous thought to its resumption "in the autumn" think that the situation will be easier then than it is now, or they are not thinking at all.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.