Lap-dog (horse)

Lap-dog was a small[2] bay horse with no white markings, bred by his owner George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont at his stud at Petworth.

He was sired by Whalebone out of Egremont's unnamed Canopus mare making him a full brother to the 1831 Derby winner Spaniel.

[3] On Wednesday 12 April, Lap-dog made his first appearance by running in a £50 subscription plate for two-, three- and four-year-olds at the Newmarket Craven meeting.

[4] For this race, Lap-dog was technically a two-year-old as racehorses in England had their official "birthdays" on 1 May: the modern practice of calculating horses' ages from 1 January was not introduced until 1834, and did not become generally accepted until the late 1850s.

He started at odds of 12/1 in a field of eleven runners and won from Lord Exeter's colt Recruit, with the favourite, Lamplighter running unplaced.

[7] The runner-up, who made most of the early running appeared to have been given a poor ride by his inexperienced jockey and was considered an unlucky loser.

[9] On his first race after his Derby win, Lap-dog appeared in the Scrub Sweepstakes at Brighton on 31 July and won from two opponents to whom he was conceding seven pounds.