Dandelion.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IV, Issue 208, 19 July 1894, Page 3

Dandelion.

“ Talking of good horses, Mr Stokes* ley,” observed a bookmaker named Sam Slateham, addressing one of ,the occupants of a first-class compartment in a return train from Epsom on the City and Suburban day, in which a general conversation on racing was taking place, “I believe that I once owned as good a handicap horse as ever ran on the turf — quite a cup horse in fact, as good at six furlongs as he was at two miles, and a real clinker at both distances.” “ Indeed, Slateham,” replied Stokesley, “ when was that ? ” 44 Some years back now, sir,” said Slateham. “ It was a horse I got hold of. quite by chance—in fact; I bought him out of a selling race.” “ You don’t mean old Index, do you. Slateham,” put in Major Bakewell, laughing. 44 That’s about the best horse I ever remember you to have had, but from what I recollect he was hardly what you would call up to cup form.” “ No, sir, I don’t mean Index ; but I do mean a horse called Dandelion, by King of the Forest out of Wild Flower, which beat Index at Windsor. I’m quite serious in what I say,” continued he, as his listeners smiled incredulously, “I believe that Dandelion was one of the best, if not absolutely the very best handicap horse that I ever saw. But I’ll give you my reasons, and leave you to judge whether or not I am justified in thinking so.” 44 At the Windsor Summer Meeting I had entered old. Index in a Mile Selling Welter Handicap. He had only run once before during that season, and then was unplaced. But he was just at this Windsor time very fresh and well, and I believe quite at his best, which was very good in his class. Crupper had galloped him satisfactorily with a horse in our stable belonging to Mr Lambourne, which had won a good race the week before at

Bath, and I was very fond of his chance. As luck would have it, there -were two or three other stables who were going for the same race. There was a Middleham horse that had come south for Ascot, which the stable thought a good thing. The Chilton people had one in, that on form looked very much like winning, and there were two horses from Newmarket both fancied a bit. “ In addition to these there were three or four others—none of any great account —besides Dandelion. The latter, described on the card as the property of Mr Arthur Paddington, was a good looking, level-made three-year-old colt—a whole brown, almost black —but as fat as a bull, and evidently in no condition to be fancied by the clever division to which he belonged. I couldn’t see any one about —they were all at Newcastle, I believe—whom I could ask about him ; but I couldn’t help thinking to myself that he was good looking enough to stand a very fair chance of changing stables that day, and I made up my mind to claim him if I got the chance.

“ There was a good market on the race, and I was able to back Index to win me a couple of thousand at 5 to 1, besides keeping him to run for my book; so that when I saw him well placed and well nigh all his field beaten at the distance I was in clover. But the next minute all was changed, for Dandelion coming through with his head on his chest, and pulling the boy out of the saddle, smothered the lot in half a dozen strides, and won, hard held, by three lengths in a common canter.

“ Index ran second, and at the subsequent auction I bought the winner for 470 guineas. As 420 of this was surplus, he only cost me 260 guineas. “ I sent him back to Crupper’s that evening with Index, and he reached home all right. 44 I had some talk with Crupper about him next day, the second day of the Windsor meeting, and we decided to put the horse into good work and try him in about three weeks’ time to find out what he really was ; for from the style in which he had won - though it was only in selling plate company—we agreed that he might be good enough for anything. 44 Next day at Sandown I was in the ring some three-quarters of an hour before racing began, when a certain prominent jockey came up to me and said : “ 4 1 hear you bought Arthur Paddington’s horse at Windsor, Sam. You must let him have it back again, as he wants it badly. It was all a mistake it running in a selling race at all. It was entered in the next race as well, and it was in that that it was intended to run. I sup pose you will take a monkey, and send the horse back.’

44 4 No, Fred,’ I replied, 4 I can’t do that. I wouldn’t take a couple of thousand for Dandelion from any man in England until I have tried him. Crupper is going to get him thoroughly fit, and then we shall see what he is made of. After that if Paddingten still wants him back we can talk about the price.’ He was not best pleased at my determination, but I would not budge an inch, and though he rose to offering me a monkey for a half share, I refused to deal on any terms whatever. “On the following Saturday I went down to Crupper’s as we were going to try Index again, to see if he was in as good form as we had thought him to be before he ran at Windsor ; with the result that he won again even easier than he had done the first time, though we set him a much harder task on this occasion.

44 Indeed, so well did he run that I put him into the two handicaps, not selling races, one at Newmarket and the other at Kempton, and he won them both with ease, though he was penalised ylbs in the second race. “ Of course this made us look forward with great interest to Dandelion’s coming trial, as we summoned up Index’s recent form to be some rolbs better than he had ever shown before, a calculation that was to some extent borne out by the way in which he had settled all his field, except Dandelion, at Windsor. “ Dandelion had met Index at 51bs, in their race, so we set him to give Index i4lbs, thus allowing iglbs for the beating. We put Lamplighter, the Bath winner, in at even weights with Dande lion —with old Stonemason, the horse which Crupper calls the stable clock, giving sibs. 44 Well, you never saw such an example in your life as the three-year-old made of them. They were to run a mile, but Dandelion had everyone of them dead beat at five furlongs, and he simply romped in alone. “ Lamplighter ran during the next

week in a good handicap, and Won his race in a common canter, and we then felt pretty certain that he had got hold of a real smasher in Dandelion. “At Goodwood, the jockey, I mentioned before came up to me and reopened negotations for getting Dandelion back, but I said, “ It’s no use, Fred. Five' thousand wouldn’t buy him now. We’ve tried him, and I think he’ll win • I races. “ 4 Win races ! ’ he exclaimed. 4 It’ll be? your fault if he don’t. He’s the best three-year-old I’ve had my leg, over this year. Well, Sam, as you won’t part with him—and I don’t blame you—you may at any rate let us know when you’re going to slip him. Shall you run him soon ? ’ “ ‘ I think not, Fred,’ I said, I am inclined to keep him for the Liverpool Autumn Cup.’ 44 4 That’ll just suit him,’ said Fred. l ln fact that was the very race we had in view for him.’' 44 I entered Dandelion in one or two handicapa just about Doncaster time, and found to my Satisfaction that in almost every instance the handicapper treated him leniently, and the horse probably would not have appeared on a racecourse again until he figured at Aintree but for a sudden jump upwards in the handicap scale that he, for some unexplained reason, took a few weeks afterwards, the cause of which I was never able to discover. 44 I used to lie awake at nights thinking of him, and of the coups I intended to bring off with him after he had won the Liverpool Cup. 44 One point in his favour was that he was an especially hardy horse, never sick or sorry for a single day, and one who throve and got big on hard work. “ All this time he had been going on extremely well, making, in Crupper’s opinion—and he is the best judge I know—extraordinary improvement. “We decided to give him a second trial, and this time to really take his measure, so that we might know whether or not he was the certainty which we believed him to be. “We gave him something to do this time, and. no mistake. We made him give Stonemason 141 b. and Lamplighter 211 b., over a distance of a mile and a half. 11 It was the same old story, and we were still just as far off as ever from finding how good Dandelion was. He had them both settled, dead as a stone, at a mile, and again romped in alone. “ That was good enough for me, and I was all for letting him run for and win the Liverpool Cup at whatever weight the handicapper chose to put on him, for I knew that the horse could not possibly. be weighted out of the race. 44 But Crupper was very strong in urging me to leave nothing to chance, but to let the horse have just one little outing to keep the weight dowp ; some little expedition to a country meeting where he would get off badly, or from some cause or other fail to show his proper form,' so that we might be sure of finding Dandelion weighted at 7.0, or at the most 7.7, when the weights for the Liverpool Cup appeared. “ I didn’t think it at all necessary, but Crupper knows very well what he is about; and as of course it could do ho harm I let him do as he proposed, and the horse ‘having an engagement in a small handicap at Hereford, he was sent there to run. “ I was at Newmarket First October, and was in course of persistently laying to big money all the favourites, which came rolling up one after the other, time after time. Just after a particularly bad race a telegram was put into my hands which I opened to read: — “ 4 Bad nevus. Dandelion bolted in race and ran against post, breaking his leg. Have had to shoot him. —Crupper? 44 1 can tell you, Mr Stokesley, that on reading that telegram, I felt very much as if some one had shot me. Yes, sir, people may say what they like about thinking one’s geese swans, but it will take a very great deal to convince me that Dandelion was not very nearly another Ormonde.” — Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News.