The row of snickering, plunging, rearing, and curvetting horses had dissolved, as in a kaleidoscope, into a bunch, and a pear-shaped formation with two or three horses streaming ahead as the stem of the pear.

Then the stem became separated from the pear-shaped mass by its superior speed, and again this vertical line of horses formed up once more horizontally, leaving the mass still farther behind.

Then the horses seen from the Grand Stand disappeared--and after a minute reappeared--three, four, five--and the bunch of them, swerving round Tattenham Corner and thundering down the incline towards the winning post....

The King's horse seemed to be leading, another few seconds would have brought it or one of its rivals past the winning post, when ...

a slender figure, a woman, darted with equal swiftness from the barrier to the middle of the course, leapt to the neck of the King's horse, and in an instant, the horse was down, kneeling on a crumpled woman, and the jockey was flying through the air to descend on hands and knees practically unhurt.