[2] Tristan was a dark chestnut horse standing just under 16 hands (64 inches, 163 cm) high, bred by Robert St Clair-Erskine, 4th Earl of Rosslyn at the Easton Stud near Great Dunmow in Essex.

[3] As a yearling, Tristan was bought by the French owner C. J. Lefevre, who sent the colt to be trained by Tom Jennings at the Phantom House stable at Newmarket, Suffolk.

[8] At Epsom in April he won the Westminster Stakes[9] and then finished second of fifteen runners to the filly Angelina in the Hyde Park Plate.

[11] At the end of the month Tristan returned to Epsom for the Derby meeting and won the Stanley Stakes, in which his three opponents included the future Grand National winner Voluptuary.

After running on unusually hard ground at Newmarket in July, when he finished unplaced behind Iroquois in the Chesterfield Stakes,[13] he developed leg problems and missed the rest of the season.

[16] On 12 June he was again tested in the highest class when he was sent to run in the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp where he was ridden by Fred Archer.

The French crowd treated the defeat of Tristan as a home victory and joined the sizable American contingent in the celebrations which were described as “the wildest ever seen at Longchamp”.

[24] 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.

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.

[30] 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[31] and allowed a horse named Friday to build up a huge lead which he was unable to make up in the straight.

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.

[39] On the last day of the Royal meeting he took the lead on the turn into the straight and won by a length and a half from Iroquois and eight others under top weight of 138 pounds to take his second Hardwicke Stakes.

[44] An example of Tristan's problematic behaviour came on Newmarket Heath that summer when he attacked a horse named Gratin, who was acting as his training companion.

[48] At Newmarket on 11 October he recorded a repeat victory in the Champion Stakes again, this time taking the race outright from the St Leger winners Ossian and Dutch Oven.

[52] At Newmarket in spring he ran a public trial against St. Simon a three-year-old colt who was prevented from running in the classics because the death of his owner had invalidated his entries.

In the two mile Gold Vase he finished third to St Gatien and Corrie Roy, but in the Hardwicke Stakes on the last day of the meeting he won easily from Waterford, with the favourite Harvester a distant third.

Running in the Champion Stakes for the third time on 9 October he delayed the start for a quarter of an hour by his "display of temper"[56] before dead-heating with the four-year-old Lucerne.