"
"Won a prize!" said I. "Was it by standing on his head?"
"Won a _race_, sir."
"Then it must have been a walk-over."
"Oh no, sir; he beat the cracks, beat the favourites, and took in all
the knowing ones. I always said there was something about that there
'oss, sir, that I didn't understand and nobody couldn't understand,
sir."
I was absolutely dumbfounded, knowing very little about "favourites"
or "cracks." My groom I knew I could rely upon, for he always seemed
to be the very soul of honour. I thought at first he might have been
misled in some Bromley taproom, but afterwards found that it was all
true--he had heard it from the owner himself, in whom the public
seemed to place confidence, for they laid very long odds against
Dreadnought.
The animal was famous, but not in that name; he had, like most honest
persons, an alias. How he achieved his victory is uncertain; one
thing, however, is certain--it must have been a startling surprise
to Dreadnought to find himself in a race at all, and still more
astonishing to find himself in front.
"How many ran?" I asked.
"Three, sir; two of 'em crack horses."
At this time I took little interest in pedigrees, and knew nothing
of the "cracks," so the names of those celebrated animals which
Dreadnought had beaten are forgotten. One of them, it appeared, had
been heavily backed at 9 to 4, but Dreadnought did not seem to care
for that; he ran, not on his public form, but on his merits.
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