page_title: Tristan (horse)
section_title: 1882: four-year-old season
hierarchical_section_title: Tristan (horse) / Racing career / 1882: four-year-old season
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of "George Fordham' (1837-1887). Caption read "The Demon". Biography&#160;: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QMFDJfYT2UEC&amp;pg=PA131&amp;lpg=PA131&amp;dq=George+Fordham+demon+jockey
context_page_description: Tristan was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. In a career that lasted from the April 1880 to October 1884, he ran 51 times and won 27 races. A useful performer at two and three years old, he matured into an outstanding horse in his last three seasons, winning important races at distances ranging from six furlongs to two and a half miles and defeating three winners of The Derby. Unusually for a 19th-century racehorse, he was regularly campaigned internationally, winning three consecutive runnings of the Grand Prix de Deauville. Tristan's success was achieved despite a dangerous and unpredictable temperament: at the height of his success, he was described as "a very vile-tempered animal".
context_section_description: As a four-year-old in 1882, Tristan showed much improved form and established himself as one of the leading racehorses in Europe by winning ten times in fourteen starts. He began the year by winning a Queen's Plate at Newmarket in April and followed up by winning His Majesty's Plate at Chester in May. At Epsom Downs Racecourse he ran twice at the Derby meeting. In the Epsom Stakes, a handicap race over one and a half miles, Tristan carried top weight of 124 pounds and won by a length and a half from Retreat He then added the Epsom Gold Cup, the race which was the forerunner of the Coronation Cup, in which he successfully conceded twenty-seven pounds to a filly named Isabel.
  At Royal Ascot in June he ran three times and was unbeaten, showing versatility by winning over three different distances. He took the two mile Gold Vase, beating the previous year's winner Chippendale by six lengths, the one mile New Biennial Stakes and the one and a half mile Hardwicke Stakes. His performances established him as "one of the best horses in training". In July he moved down to sprint distances for the July Cup over six furlongs at Newmarket. Conceding at least twelve pounds to his opponents, Tristan won his eighth successive race by taking the lead at half way and winning easily from the two-year-old Royal Stag with Nellie third. In the Goodwood Cup on 27 July Tristan started at odds of 1/4 against two moderate opponents, but his winning streak came to an end after his jockey, George Fordham, misjudged the race tactics and allowed a horse named Friday to build up a huge lead which he was unable to make up in the straight. In August he was sent to France again and won the Grand Prix de Deauville from ten opponents.
  On 12 October he contested the Champion Stakes over ten furlongs at Newmarket. He ran a dead heat with the filly Thebais, winner of the 1881 1000 Guineas and Oaks, with the St Leger winner Dutch Oven in third. Later in the meeting he finished second to the two-year-old Energy in the Great Challenge Stakes. At the end of October, Tristan ran twice at the Newmarket Houghton meeting without reproducing his best form. In the Cambridgeshire Handicap he carried top weight of 130 pounds and finished seventh of the thirty-one runners behind Hackness. On his final start of the year he ran in the Jockey Club Stakes over two and a quarter miles. In a closely contested four way finish he dead-heated for second place with City Arab, a short head behind Chippendale and a neck in front of the mare Corrie Roy.
caption: George Fordham: Tristan's regular jockey
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