Reading about the Derby autumn meeting in mid-winter is not so inappropriate as it might appear to be, for with sleet and snow falling on the first day the elements were more wintry than autumnal. I have seen this meeting celebrated with much more go than on the present occasion. It is essentially a meeting for hunting folk, so far as the county stand is concerned, and one seemed to miss far too many of the familiar faces. The impression conveyed by the gathering was of the lack-lustre order. Large fields of nurseries have long been a feature of the meeting, but of course the winning or losing of them conveys little merit or demerit. The fields for them have been larger; but I am not a worshipper of large fields, not being a clerk of the course or a holder of racecourse shares. From one point of view the field of twenty for the Gold Cup was very satisfactory, for it meant that twenty horses were thought to have a chance in a race of a mile and three-quarters. Fields for distance races undoubtedly have been looking up of late years. Yet few of our courses are less suitable for a race over such a distance as that at Derby—a parallelogram with rounded corners. So soon as horses have begun to stretch out along either of the longer sides—long only in comparison with the extreme shortness of the other two—than they have to steady for a corner. In such circumstances a mare like Hammerkop, who was carrying 9st. 3lb., could stand but little chance. At Newmarket she would have been well fancied. Yet there are people who grumble at those fine, straightaway stretches of turf, because the horses start so far away. These prefer courses of the circus order, for the sake of the spectacle. Although the regulation straight mile has by no means met with universal approbation, its introduction has more method than madness about it. In the formation of a new course the laying out of a straight mile must be associated with a good deal of luck, for, run in one direction, it might prove popular and the reverse if run the other way. At Gatwick there is a rise of some 6 ft. from start to finish of the straight mile, and at Newbury, I understand, the rise is much more than this. Experience has taught us that rising straight miles are not so popular as falling ones, which may be argued to show a tendency to weakness in horse-flesh, the qualities which take horses successfully up the long hill at Sandown being not often met with. Here we have a hint at a clashing of interests between such as like to have things made easy for them and those which may be regarded as making for the higher interests of the turf. This clashing of interests we shall always have with us, so we may take it by way of our daily salt, with equanimity.
The Derby Gold Cup, as a trophy, was a perfectly delightful production, it being a gold tankard in the 16th century style, and no one would appreciate it more than the owner, whose sideboard it was destined to adorn, for the race was won by Lord Rosebery’s Catscradle. Her starting price of 20 to 1 was justified by her previous running and when she made the first bend nearly last of all 40 to 1 would not have been taken. However, it was her day, and she came through her field to win in comfortable fashion by a couple of lengths from Airship. She ran practically unbacked by her connections. The race for the King’s Cup of two miles “did not fill.” Bachelor’s Button, who had acted as a spoil-sport at Lincoln, by frightening away opposition for the Jockey Club Plate, and walking over for the £300 given by the Jockey Club for the express purpose of furthering sport at meetings where such assistance would be welcome, had not been started for the Gold Cup. He was in reserve for the King’s Plate, but the race “did not fill,” so the meeting saved their £200 instead of increasing the winning account of Bachelor’s Button by that amount.
As season follows season the Manchester meetings attract a diminishing amount of attention. It is a question of reaping what you have sown. Large sums of money were spent upon an unsuitable site, much of the money in the erection of buildings more adapted to municipal purposes than to racing. Except that the big turn is one of the finest in England, the course has proved unsatisfactory, in consequence of the rapidity with which the going goes wrong under wet. In this respect the course is not much better than the old one, which it will quite resemble when it has undergone a course of protection from frost by means of hay for the same number of years. “Disappeared in the main drain, I assure you,” explained the late Duchess of Montrose on the occasion of one of her horses coming to grief in the evil going of the old course. People of the Turf standing of the late Duchess do not find themselves at the new course. The better classes of Manchester firmly decline to be attracted by the races, despite the club stand, the contrast with Liverpool being remarkable. The weather rarely fails to make the November meeting a ghastly affair. In going back to Castle Irwell the management deliberately went to the home of fog, and, in consequence, most of the racing, as a spectacle, is a farce. We are all aware that the period at which the November meeting is decided is too late for good weather, but any attempt to move the fixture forward, supposing such a desire existed, of which I have no knowledge, would scarcely meet with success. If the Stewards of the Jockey Club regard the meeting as an unimportant one they can claim to take this impression from evidence supplied by the meeting itself, the average value of stakes not entitling it to any standing. Eight of the twenty races provide the minimum £100 allowed to the winner, for instance. There must be some significance in the reduction of the Whitsuntide meeting, at which all the money is made, from four days to three. This year’s November meeting was treated to continuous wet, the going of each succeeding day being worse than that preceding it. The November Handicap was run on the last day, and the field of nineteen included some good handicap horses. As at Derby, form was knocked into a cocked hat, the 25 to 1 Ferment gaining a decisive victory. It is a pity that the racing season is each year brought to a close in this uncomfortable manner, and if one cannot quite go with those who recognise no racing previous to that taking place at the Newmarket Craven meeting one can at least see some plausibility in ending it with the Houghton. If mudlarking is to be done, one may as well do it personally, to the tune of hound music.
Although racing ends for the year at Manchester, the curtain cannot be said to fall until the Gimcrack Club dinner has been held. The function to which custom has given such wholehearted recognition sits well on the shoulders of the York Race Committee, which, as the Chairman at the recent dinner very properly pointed out, gives back to the Turf everything that is earned by the races. There are not many race-meetings of which this can be said; and what a contrast to money-grabbing Doncaster! Of course it is not wholly and solely custom that assigns to the Gimcrack dinner the importance which attaches to it. We have a trenchant way nowadays of kicking overboard any custom, however hoary, which has outlived its utility. For the Gimcrack dinner there is much need, for it is the only occasion of the year upon which Turf topics may be publicly ventilated. As to the kind of topics touched upon and their treatment, those depend upon the particular person who may be called upon to ventilate. When we consider that the guest of the evening, to whom free rein is given if he wants it, is the owner of the winner of the Gimcrack Stakes, we realise how very uncertain must be the question of oratory. It is possible to conceive an owner of a Gimcrack winner taking but little stock in the higher interests of the Turf. Mr. Hall Walker, whose filly, Colonia, won him the Gimcrack Stakes of 1905, is, however, not a man of this sort. How it came about I do not know, but some people expected Mr. Hall Walker to say “straight things” to the Jockey Club; but nothing could have been more exemplary than his references to that body. He was full of anxiety for the welfare of the Turf as connected with the welfare of the horse, and his enthusiasm led him to propound schemes some of us, I fear, will be inclined to regard as Utopian. Taking as his text the statement that, “In all the leading Continental States the production and development of the horse is made a subject of governmental care and solicitude,” Mr. Hall Walker proposed that the British Government should grant, if not funds, at least power to the Jockey Club, who was to embody amongst its functions that of a society for the encouragement of horse-breeding. In order to accomplish the desired ends, the Jockey Club was to have the power to establish race-meetings over all or any common land free from interference by local councils and the freedom to acquire by purchase any existing race-meeting. I do not pause to consider the plausibility of such a project or the probability of the Jockey Club embarking upon it, for I have used the word Utopian; Mr. Hall Walker next referred to the means by which any shortage in funds was to be made good. They were to be provided by the introduction of the pari-mutuel. He added—“The advantages of the pari-mutuel are clear and decided. In the first place, it would provide large sums of money for the end we have in view, and it would practically bring about the abolition of street betting.” The writer’s views on the subject differ from those advanced by Mr. Hall Walker, but space does not permit of a discussion of the question raised.
Lord Downe in a speech, the tone of which charmed every one, maintained that the only solution to the betting difficulty was to license bookmakers and making betting debts recoverable. Of course his lordship does not propose that the Jockey Club should take the initiative, remembering, as he does, that when the anti-gamblers were last at work, betting at Newmarket was disavowed. The Club could not well ask to have that legalised which they claim does not exist. That the licensing of bookmakers is a desirable thing all sensible men will gladly admit. Racing would be all the better for it, but unless the trend of thought takes an entirely new channel, I cannot see any form of Government legalising gambling in the shape of wagering on horse-races.
Viscount Helmsley, who added to the nice things said by Lord Downe about the Press, who came in for a rough handling at last year’s dinner, suggested the institution of races for ponies up to 14.2, for the encouragement of the breed. Racehorses in the past have not always been the 16 hands animals that are now so common. Two hundred years ago Mixbury, by Curwen’s Bay Barb, standing only 13.2, was the most famous galloway of his day. Pony and galloway racing is no new thing in the present generation, but it has not taken kindly to the sport. An experiment was made at Plumpton on Whit Monday, 1903, which resulted in complete failure, and it is not quite clear what racing under Jockey Club rules could do. A race here and there would not effect much, and it is an open question whether enough thoroughbreds of 14.2 and under exist to fill many races. There are at least a few clerks of the course who are enterprising enough to welcome any novelty, and if fields could be assured a first step would be taken. Without such assurance he would be a bold man to take the step of opening such a race. It might be worth the while of those interested in pony breeding to provide the stake in the first instance, and see how the suggestion took with others. Experience in India teaches us that good sport is to be had out of ponies.
STAGHOUNDS.
Hind-hunting is at its best in November and December. The hinds are difficult to kill; they are then stronger than stags. It is for this reason that I record what must be considered to be a notable performance of the Devon and Somerset from the Heathpoult on December 3rd. The fixture was for 10 a.m. You want all the daylight there is to kill a stout hind. There was a thick fog and they had to wait some time before it was possible to hunt. At last Mr. Morland Greig gave the word, and kennelling the pack, tufters were taken to Slowley. The run began almost at once, and the chase was nearly all over an enclosed country. The pace was often good, and the hunt lasted for two hours. But the feature of it was that we never got the pack, and that the whole was carried on by the huntsman with four or five couples of hounds. The hind escaped, but not till nearly four o’clock. A week later, in thick fog and driving rain, Mr. E. A. V. Stanley and the Quantock hounds drove a hind straight and fast from the same covert, and killed her near the pier-head at Minehead. Taking the weather into consideration this was a noteworthy gallop.
Two memorable runs have taken place with foxhounds during the past month. The week from December 5th to December 10th was perhaps the best of the season, and there was sport in every country. The Quorn was stopped by fog and hindered by absence of scent on the two days in the week—Monday, Friday—they were in the best country, but as we shall see, made up for it on Saturday. It is not the least remarkable feature of these waves of sport that they affect, about the same time, countries of different soils, climate, and contour, often widely separated by distance.