"CROCKS" THAT HAVE WON CLASSIC RACES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9162, 4 June 1908, Page 7

"CROCKS" THAT HAVE WON CLASSIC RACES.

It is necessary to go back some years to find a parallel to the achievement of the fifteen-guinea es-trap-horse Rubio, in winning the Grand National. Possibly the nearest approach to it was the case of Throstle, which beat Lord Rosebery’s Ladas in the ninetyfourth St. Leger, and which was so little thought of by the owner. Lord Alington, that he was at cue time on - the point of having her shot, after having vainly tried to give her away amongst his friends and acquaintances.

Then, too, there was Salamander, a Grand National winner like Rubio, who, after being used iu harness and as a hunter, was hawked about to more than a score of country fairs before a purchaser could be found to give £35 for him. Although the respectable sum of one thousand guineas, on the other hand, was paid for Hermit by his owner, Mr Henry Chaplain, the racing public thought so little of him that he was generally alluded to as “Chaplain’s Crock,’’ and long odds were laid against him when ghe ran for the Derby in the “snowstorm year.”- Nevertheless, he romped home a winner, to the utter ruin and discomfiture of the Marquis of Hastings, who had staked his entire fortune on another horse Not even his owner, Mr J. W. Laruac.li, supposed for one single instant that Jeddah, the winner of the 1898 Derby, stood the remotest chance of flashing first past the post, the result being that the horse started at forlorn odds. Never, before or since, has so long a starting price been obtainable for the winner of any one of the great races. Without doubt, however, the very ■“crockiest” of all “crocks’’ that ever won a classic race was Amato, which carried all before him in the Derby of 1838. Nicknamed on account of bis infirmities the “coughing pony,” lie was tried privately, ran iu that one race only, and was practically unquoted in the ring, nobody apparently knowing anything'about him.