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having nearly worn it out, and Franchise, the one destined to earn a reputation, showing, for the nonce, "discretion, valour's better part.' Any great hit in the handicap line up to Ascot, acts as a stopper to running a muck on that kind of game hereafter.

The new anti-thimble-rig edict told at no meeting so severely as Hampton, where it came almost as the quietus complete; notwithstanding that, for the last few years, the last in particular, the sport here was much improving, there was no attempt at a rally, and, putting what racing there was out of the question, the "melancholy recreation" was left to the 'specials, who certainly, at the expense or risk of Sam Mann, Christophero Sly, and others, did contrive to raise a laugh or two. At Newton, again, another meeting that promised well, they appear to have played their parts in something like the same sober sadness; coming at the period it does, there must be a grand feature to make this a general rendezvous, while the inducements this season were small, and the company in the same ratio-what might have been, and what I fear may be expected. The Bibury and Stockbridge firm, with the new understanding and good guardianship of John Day and Isaac Sadler, works on famously; the events decided here between amateurs and professionals would scarcely demand separate notice, had not the first come off introduced the now first favourite for the Derby. That he is not as worthy to head Tattersall's list as anything else out I should be loth to affirm; his place I do not question, but his price I do; by the two-year-old running of this year there is not a horse out that ought to be backed at under twenty to one; and when Alarm, a month or six weeks before running, has done much more than he has done yet, his true price will be a point or two greater than the ten to one taken at present.

was

The two and three year old running at Newcastle not this season so interesting as it usually is, the Cure being the only nag of any character that appeared. His clever performance certainly had a marked effect on the Leger betting, while the other stakes were divided among Epsom outsiders, either past or to come, without creating any sensation. The pith of the meeting was, consequently, centred in the plate-chiefly remarkable for being won by the Era; a horse that last season was, when in Scott's stable, made a great pet of for this very same handicap, being backed, at starting, at nearly even betting, but running home without a place. Are we to gather from the two very different results that he got better in (what the world would call) worse hands; or put this down as one more mistake to the account of the great stables? The Cup here treated us to nothing beyond a pro formâ performance between Alice Hawthorn and Winesour; and the Goodwood Cup encouraged for the last time a similar hollow exhibition on the part of some less talented adventurers. A man, they say, ought to be satisfied with making one good hit in one season with a horse; but about this time of the year it is not of rare occurrence to find a sequitur to a handicap victory; and the finish for the Liverpool Plate furnished additional evidence of the really superior qualities of Scott's Cast-off; giving good weight and a good beating to Pastoral, Mickey Free, Aristotle, and Pompey, cannot rank the Era very low. The race, however,

of most import over the Aintree was the St. Leger; always full of debateable matter on its namesake further north, and now and then (Fireaway, for instance) destroying the second chance of those who aim at both; a result with something like the same consequences to one, if not to the two, who ran so severe a match for it this season. Pantasa beat a lot of middling two-year-olds in good style; and little Mickey Free at the second attempt renewed the hopes of the Pat-landers, who, as usual, came in crowds to test what had been done on the Curragh.

The Second Spring having received so very little real benefit from the assistance given by the town, no helping hand from that quarter can be expected for its immediate successor; and the Jockey Club having never turned their attention to it, the July meeting of course continues to get worse and worse; while Goodwood, in whose great attractions we might, perhaps, trace some cause for this, proceeds precisely vice versa; where either will stop it is difficult to say. The latter, taken on the whole, as an uninterrupted week of brilliant sport, from the start for the Craven to running off the ties among the gentlemen jocks, has long "whipt the world;" although, unlike other grand places of sport, it does not rest its fame on one or two heavy events; if we must give precedence, it is to the Cup, which "the mare of all others" cantered away with in a style superior even to Harkaway; an exploit that tended to assure the contractors their squeamish Ascot Heath delicacy was little needed, and, when opposed to the shameful plating at Newmarket in October, redounding little more to their honour than that to their humanity. The show of two-year-olds was strong both in numerical and individual strength, John Day and the Home Stable getting the best of the various bouts, though perhaps not in every instance with the best horses. The then said to be crack of the lot, known as the Cobweb colt, is almost the only one of the beaten horses now being backed (and verily their name is legion), that I should feel inclined to put any trust in. Fortune also bestowed her favours in other respects on the parties just alluded to; the Duke, as usual, taking a pretty good tithe of "the sum total;" and the Danebury division making one of their numerous good things tell for the Handicap Stake; when "honest John's" certainties do come off, the receipts are sure to be heavy. Notwithstanding the two recent warnings afforded in the cases of Attila and Cotherstone, we actually had three prime St. Leger favourites doing all they knew at Goodwood, a couple in the hands of those who have already suffered so severely by this error in judg ment; the advantage with either of the trio was in nowise equal to the damage, the mare's great lump of extra weight stultifying the performance in toto; and, thanks to a singular mistake, the second trial between Ithuriel and Red Deer ending still more unsatisfactory than the first. All this, when taken into consideration, with the wear and tear of spirit and sinew, cannot have done much to further the insurance of the premier prize a few weeks following. The only other race our limits will allow us to notice is that in which the once wonderful nag Cotherstone appeared, and in the struggle for which he bowed to the now general rule, which proclaims that no horse who

has run right through his third year as a right good one shall continue in that character for another season. Will the Irish Hero who so discreetly declined any interference here prove an exception?

It seems astonishing, in this age of improvement, that Brighton, with the manifold advantages it enjoys, does not give us a taste of the olden time; the helps however of plenty of fashionable patronage, good situation, and easy reach, are more than counterbalanced by the apathy and parsimony of the town and trade, who, I believe, have not even the priest-ridden plea of another favourite resort, for the decline and fall of their races. The only feature of any note was the mistake of Alice Hawthorn for the Queen's Plate, which a good half of the ring, mindful of the different dodges already tried, were disposed to put down as intentional; but I think upon consideration not even the sorely-used Squire would press this opinion. Brighton not being in the line chalked out for her, Franchise cut in again with little trouble at Wolverhampton, a meeting this year in no respect quite up to the mark, and thence travelled brim-full of confidence into the north, but "York was wanting," though bringing out as middling a lot, and setting her against them at as favourable weight, as any in which she had just proved successful—iterum, iterum, iterumque, despite vans, railroads, and winning in canters, no doubt had its effect on one who doesn't come of a very hardy sort. For those two well-devised small subscription Stakes, the Prince of Wales and Great Yorkshire, a couple of large fields again showed, though the quality, bar the first (Lancashire Witch), with perhaps Pantasa placed second for the former, was very indifferent: this, however, is no fault of the directors, who are carrying on York races with that spirit and success which marked the opening-day last

season,

One glance ere we reach Doncaster, at Warwick, where they chanted in strong but not very harmonious numbers the strain

"That misfortunes they never come single, that's plain."

In the first place, that sine quâ non-the sport, for many years has never in any particular been so flat and uninteresting: then the threatened, if not actual split between the allies damped pretty considerably any preparations for "next time," which the very hostile proceedings on the part of the gentlemen sportsmen versus their very obedient servant, the clerk of the course, rayther increased. A word or two on the last only of these evils: No man should be condemned on mere suspicion, the more particularly when his offence hangs on such an unsatisfactory, self-contradicting test as a horse's mouth. None until within the last few months could be more sincere in his respect to the Jockey Club than the humble individual who pens these remarks; but their closed-door councils, their disposition to screen the high, and their readiness to expose the low, have, I must say, worked a change. Mr. Brown may be guilty, for what I know ; undoubtedly a greater robbery than the one on which he gave evidence was never attempted; but I hold, as I ever have, to the fallacy of a horse's mouth."

For three or four years past the Doncaster St. Leger has been

invariably thrown away by bad management; but this season, by way of a change, it was won mainly by capital generalship, coupled with a slice of good fortune. I do not mean to say that if the race had been really run from end to end, we should have had something else first past the post; but enacted as it was, I have little doubt that had the Cure run tolerably straight, he must have won. Foig-aBallagh beat him by just a length, neither cleverly nor easily; and how many lengths did the favourite by his vagaries lose between the distance and the chair? Had his heart at that moment been half as good as his heels, depend upon it the ten pounds extra would not have made such a wonderful achievement of the Irishman's second victory at Newmarket; or had Ithuriel been half as well husbanded, it would run anyhow-have come to a very near thing between the two. In taking the true estimate of all Foig's races, and here particularly, we must not forget the immense advantage of a horse as fresh as possible, over a very stale one. Of this we had another instance on the last day of the meeting, in a third or fourth essay between the Princess and Sorella, though to the latter everybody now appears inclined to allow the superiority: certainly the Oaks has long ceased to stamp the fair ones who wear her honours as anything extra superfine. The Two-year-old Stakes did not muster such a bunch of great favourites as usual, still Lancashire Witch's winning the Champagne, her third victory at the third start, deservedly established her as first on the list for the Oaks; her position, however, would have been far more satisfactorily ascertained had Mid-Lothian, in courtesy be it said, got a good start, or in matter of fact, ever been started at all for the companion Stake on the Thursday. For the Great Yorkshire Pompey again put in his claim, a repetition of not every day occurrence. Lord Eglinton keeps his hand well in here, as by the way does Alice Hawthorn, a name now more dreaded, though (in shame be it added) perhaps not so much respected as "ould Bee's-wing." In fine, Doncaster acts up to the spirit of the age, to the very letter we may add, now the next meeting is announced as "a little compressed."

The good effect of the finish in the Newmarket October Meetings was somewhat disturbed by the winding-up of the Ratan affair; otherwise in the general matter of the month all was excellent, both in promise and performance. The great gun, not of one but the three gatherings, was the Leger winner, whose easy victory in the first, as a natural consequence on the Doncaster running, was just what was expected; his repeating it in the second just the reverse of that, looking at age, weight, and distance, one would have been led to suppose; and his defeat in the third the greatest certainty of all, hinting to Mr. Irwin that fortune yet might be fickle, and that Foig-a-Ballagh minus her aid was not invincible. For my own part, notwithstanding all this, I cannot so easily credit the unprecedented powers in this horse the world appear inclined to allow him the possession of-barring Alice Hawthorn, Robert de Gorham, and one or two more, the four-year-olds and upwards are a shocking bad lot, while of these some of the worst, and, as I have before observed, the stalest, have been drawn out against him. Almost the only one I

can find among them, whose running within a reasonable time, before or after, can be called respectable, is the half-bred horse, the Counsellor, a nag that has been going spring, summer, and autumn, at all sorts of game, in every month for this year and a half, and who finished his career at the very next start, being, I am told, still laid up at Newmarket from the effects of his bad break-down in winning the Audley End. It would be folly, for a second, to question the good game, from-end-to-end powers of the Irishman, but I doubt very much his continuing in his Eclipse-like character. What a pity that last stroke of business-the humbugging match between him and the mare-did not come to a race! Of the two-year-olds, the best out when they began remained amongst the best at the close, the Maid of Orleans, Reaction, Cowl, and Longitude increasing the profit side of the book, and My Mary so improved on making her début in a civilized country, that her worthy owner, the worthy alderman, determined to remain there for better or worse. Cowl and Lord Lonsdale's Turquoise colt, two of the most promising of their year, are not in the Derby, the latter through the death of his breeder and nominator-the Duke of Grafton, while the former never was in it! Got by Bay Middleton, winner of the Derby, out of Crucifix, winner of the Oaks! what could his lordship have been thinking of when he sent in his page or two of nominations? The Nursery that, despite the many feints practised to get well in, always ensures one or two smart contests, produced a couple of evenish classes, and a bit of a row touching the very unexpected and equally unsatisfactory withdrawal of Mr. Gratwicke's Carlotta colt when first favourite for the first; a case that would have been made more of, had the principal parties concerned been of less standing: it is not without precedent, but bears so closely on, and affords such an opportunity for robbery, that the practice of it is by no means commendable.

So falls the curtain on 'forty-four, a year of great event to the turfite, "full of wise saws and modern instances," of legal and illegal contrivances, which have brought so many outstanding accounts to a settlement, as to promise the transaction of business on a much better understanding in future-a promise right welcome to winter on.

SPORTS OF THE WORLD, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

Within the last twelve years-thanks to the Société d' Encouragement-races have assumed in France and Belgium a more important feature than they have done for centuries: the success of "Beggarman," the property of the late Duke of Orleans, who won the cup at Goodwood in 1840, is still in our readers' remembrance; in 1841 too his

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