Summary
Clipstone, the Duke of Desborough’s obsidian-black colt, thunders through the misty downs like a living metaphor for privilege itself, until jealousy—personified by Major Roland Mostyn—gallops in, sabre-sharp and smiling. Mostyn’s stratagem unfurls in velvet-gloved cruelty: he plants perfumed letters, stage-manages a hotel key, and watches Muriel’s reputation combust in the scandal sheets. Divorce papers arrive on parchment as crisp as autumn leaves; the duke, stripped of wife and honour, is lured to a candle-lit card table where every hand is a scaffold. Ruin complete, Clipstone is led away under the hammer, hooves drumming a funeral march. Muriel, draped in grief’s silver veil, begs battle-scarred Captain Streatfield to rescue the horse she once fed sugar cubes to while love was still uncomplicated. Derby day dawns: Mostyn’s pockets bulge with IOUs, his own horse a sleek fraud; Clipstone—mane flickering like comet fire—breaks from the start as if released by destiny. The Major’s attempt to bribe a jockey collapses beneath a stewards’ inquiry; sunlight spears the dust as Muriel’s innocence flares across the tannoy. Reconciliation arrives not with trumpets but with a trembling touch on a turf-scarred sleeve, the couple framed against a grandstand whose bunting snaps like flags over a battlefield now silent.
Synopsis
Very jealous of the Duke of Desborough's prize race horse "Clipstone," Major Roland Mostyn schemes to destroy his rival and thus obtain possession of the animal. After framing the duke's wife Muriel in a false adultery suit which results in divorce, Mostyn ruins the young duke at cards, thus forcing him to auction his horse in order to pay his debts. Muriel, heartbroken by the separation, persuades her old friend Captain Streatfield to purchase the horse and enter him in the derby. Mostyn bets all his money on his horse and attempts to fix the race but his plot is discovered and Clipstone wins the contest. After Muriel's innocence is proven, Mostyn's villainy towards the duke is finally stopped and the couple is happily reunited.
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