Page images
PDF
EPUB

successfully, in the Steward's Cup, and Mr. Usher, the clerk of the course, could not win his case on Barrister in either trial with Aurora Leigh. However, the Blink Bonny colours got the cheers they deserved, in old Benvoirloch's day. Géant des Batailles was another Plaudit for the Richmond people. Repulse's rumoured lameness did not prevent her from winning two races, and War scored his solitary "century" of the season. Thanks to Lord Hastings and Sir Frederick Johnstone, and the performances of "Young Scotland" in the saddle, Ayr had a capital celebration, while the two Welsh meetings were very poor. Rejoinder opened, and Rejoinder closed the last meeting that will, we believe, ever be held on Castle Irwell; and Success's Cesarewitch chance vanished with his inability to give 35lbs. to Capitola. For the Grand Duke Michael, at Newmarket First October, Hermit, Hippia, and Julius had not a ghost of a chance over the R.M. with Friponnier, and hence those who had dropped their Derby money over The Rake might well sigh. Westwick's defeat by Leybourne was a very decided surprise, and so was the defeat of Suffolk by The Earl. There was another double dead-heat for a £40 Sweepstakes, and a noble lord is said to have dropped as much over it as he had won throughout the meeting. Northampton was a wretched affair, and Edinburgh as much the contrary. Moulsey had gone up as far for the Queen's Plate, but so had Sundeelah, to his sorrow. The latter's next essay was to run 4 furlongs instead of 2 miles 4 furlongs, but Evelina at 38lbs. was much too sharp for him. Liddington (Grimshaw) won three times at Bedford, and Rama showed symptoms of returning form by his defeat of Assineboine, for the Queen's Plate. The eccentric Suffolk thought better of the matter at the Newmarket Second October, and Leonie had to play second to him; and after all the Honesty by-play, Julius 8st. proved that it takes a fabulous amount of weight to stop a real race horse. A difference of 12lbs. brought The Earl and Ouragan together; but the latter won a head in the final heat. The Middle Park Plate will always be memorable for Sir Joseph's public trial of Green Sleeve and Rosicrucian, and the defeat of Lady Elizabeth, who, with only 9lbs. to the good, settled Julius over the same distance two days after in the most daring match of the season. It was a very proud reminiscence for her noble owner, in connection with this most disastrous week.

Suffolk, after beating Leonie, took it suddenly into his head to be last to Green Sleeve, Virtue, and the "great clothes horse" St. Ronan, in the Prendergast Stakes; and Mr. Pulsford Robson, who has been latterly such an object of tender interest, wound up the work by winning a match, oddly enough with himself up, against Risk, an antagonist which he had been so studiously courting. After lying fallow for a year, Northallerton contrived to get up a meeting; and the Caledonian Hunt, with Belmont, Sundeelah, and Tynedale, &c., in attendance, managed to drag out a three-day meeting over the Perth Inches, Challenge showed that the spirit had departed from him, when Van Amburgh could beat him over the R.M.; and Leonie could not struggle with Rosicrucian up the Criterion hill, on which King Alfred held his wonted place of third. Saccharometer finished his career over the A.F., and went sadly too cheap for 1,200 sovs., to Mr. Eyke. The Cambridgeshire dead-heat between Lozenge and Wolsey only increased

the regret that Friponnier (8st. 5lb.) had not been allowed to start. Michael de Basco, who was fitter than he was at Doncaster, reversed places with Court Mantle, and it being Suffolk's turn to win, he disposed of the Earl by a neck, over the D.M. Friponnier gave Xi 4lbs. and beating in a T.Y.C. match, and Typhoeus brought back his £1,050 purchase money to Count Batthyany, and £1,550 with it; while Pace, who had beaten Athena at the previous meeting, could not run a respectable last. At Lincoln, Lord Lyon was caught, and beaten by Rama, when he seemed to have all the best of it in the two miles Queen's Plate. Mandrake was the very unlooked for hero of the Liverpool Cup, and also played the leading part in that remarkable Queen's Plate at Shrewsbury, which occupied nearly eighteen minutes. York and Doncaster have both seen a similar sight, and a very weary one it is. Leonie, 7st. 5lb., met Knight of the Garter 8st. 10lb., Regalia 8st. 12lb., Bounceaway 9st. 21b., Queen of Trumps 8st. 13lb., and Liddington 9st. 21b; all winners this year, and all fast ones, in the Shobdon Cup, but they were no use at all" to the sweet little chesnut flyer. Warwick is simply noticeable for the fact, that as long as a lessee will find the music, race-horse owners will furnish dancers. There were 38 races and matches in the four days, with 377 runners, or 9 and a fraction per race, and without a walk over. And so a most gambling season ended on November 22nd, and Newmarket betook itself to greyhounds in earnest.

[ocr errors]

The season has been marked by the high form, at a short distance, which the old division-Saccharometer, Ostreger, and Volunteerhave shown. Liddington, at very short distances, is a good "revival;" and Moulsey, six years, has been "a very cheerful 'oss,' and managed short and long alike. Lecturer has been the four-yearold of the year, on the strength of his two Ascot performances; and Rama cannot be far behind him, when both are well. Achievement and Friponnier are in the front rank of the three-year-olds, and Hermit, Julius, Vauban, and Knight of the Garter in the second. Taking the line through King of the Fairies, "The Knight" must be some 2st. better than Lord Hastings and all that form, if the twomile line holds for one. The old school would say that the close finish between Rosicrucian and Greensleeve makes "the whole squad" of two years old bad; and, despite Lady Elizabeth's great performance with Julius, her backers do not just like the way in which Grimston could reach her head in the early part of the season; to say nothing of her fearfully irritable temper. Blue Gown is, we fancy, a mere Derby snare; and Pace may prove rather a delicate horse. Among the maidens, Buttercup may be heard of again, when she has a longer distance to go; but we have probably seen the best of Leonie, and not the best of The Earl. Trumpeter has made the sire hit of the season; and Thormanby has done poorly enough. For a closely-contested race, there has been nothing quite equal to the Queen's Plate at Newcastle, when five finished within a neck. Dead heats (of which the chief was between Leonie and Athena) have been rather common; and two of them have been double ones. There has been a great deal of very good riding. Among the younger jocks, Cameron has been a peculiar star; Daley has come out as quite one of the patient "Our Jim" school since he felt his power at Epsom; Cannon has made every

use of his fine start of last year; Jemmy Grimshaw has had two accidents off horseback, but done good work when he was on; T. French has gone steadily forward; H. Covey has had a capital "man-boy" business; and Challoner has had a remarkably good practice, though not nearly equal to Fordham's. Excluding dead heats, the former has won 50 races out of 273; while Fordham heads the poll with 128 out of 381, which is a fraction over every third. To adopt the Sporting Life calculation, the race-figures of Kenyon, who has won innumerable chicken plates in the green and silver braid, are 106 out of 427. Then come Butler (97) (434), Cameron (85) (426). Cannon (554) (314), Mordan (53) (267), H. Covey (45) (239). Custance (40) (154), Daley (41) (154), A. Edwards (35) (125), J. Grimshaw (30) (126), and T. French (29) (155).

IMPROVED EXMOORS.

BRED BY MR. ROBERT SMITH, OF EMMETT'S GRANGE, SOUTH MOLTON.

ENGRAVED BY E, HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET.

Lunette, the bay mare pony on the right, foaled in 1860, is by Bobby out of Brunette, a picked Exmoor pony mare, with some of the oldest blood of the Hills in her veins, and a dash of the Katerfelto. Lunette, who stands 13 hands high, was sold by private contract to Mr. Milward, and exhibited by him at the Salisbury Meeting of the Bath and West of England Society in 1866, where she was highly commended, the one premium going to a little wonder entered by Mr. Rawlence, of Bulbridge. The Judges' Report, as published in the Society's Journal, thus speaks to the class: "There was nothing found more favour at Salisbury than Mr. Rawlence's chesnut pony-that is to say, a pony by his inches, but a modern bloodlike hunter in his character, as he has fairly earned this in the field. With little more before, Apricot would be close upon perfection, and therefore Mr. Milward finished no nearer than second, with a particularly neat daughter of the famous galloway Bobby, out of an Exmoor mare, and bred by Mr. Robert Smith on the Moor. It is not often that two better than these are seen together." Lunette, a few weeks afterwards, succeeded to the first prize of £10 in the thirteen hands' class of the first Birmingham Horse Show, the Rev. W. Holt Beever's grey, originally placed first, being disqualified as over the specified height. We saw the last of Lunette at Tattersall's, on the Monday before the Derby, when she came up with the Thurgarton string, and made 40 guineas to Mr. Pepys, the lowest figure of the day, a sufficient proof of the excellence of the collection.

The other pony in the plate is The Chieftain, also foaled in 1860, and by Bobby out of Nellie by Greyling, a horse that not

[graphic][subsumed]

Improved "Exmoors.

Bred 2. & M. Robert Smith of Emmetts Grange South Molton Devon

London. Published by Rogerson & Tuaford, 265, Strand, 1967

« PreviousContinue »