Like M. Fould and several other brethren of the turf, Comte de Lagrange
felt the discouragements of the Franco-German war, and sold all his
horses to M. Lefevre. Fortunately, however, he had retained in his stud
at Dangu a splendid lot of breeding-mares, and with these he has since
been able to reconstruct a stable of the first order, though the effort
has cost him a very considerable sum. Indeed, he himself admits that to
cover expenses he would have to make as much as thirty thousand pounds
every year. Four times victorious in the French Derby before 1870, he
has since repeated this success for two successive years--in 1878 with
Insulaire, and in 1879 with Zut. His colors (blue jacket with red
sleeves and a red cap) are as well known in England as in his own
country. Within the last six years he has three times won the Oaks at
Epsom with Regalia, Reine and Camelia, the Goodwood Cup with Flageolet,
the two thousand guineas and the Middlepark and Dewhurst Plates with
Chamant. On the 12th of June, last year, at Ascot, he gained two races
out of three, and in the third one of his horses came in second.
But the count is by no means always a winner, nor does he always win
with the horse that, by all signs, ought to be the victor.
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