6 S Dunmow Fair 5F CHESHIRE STAKES Sun Moon HIGH WATER rises and rises & London Bridge. sets. sets. morn. I aftern. h. m. d. h. m. h. m. h. m. RISES Morning r 4 3328 afternoon r 4 29 N SETS. no tide 0 25 0 48 1 15 135 20 2 25 2 45 r 4 26 210 6 3 10 3 35 3 55 4 20 411 54 4 40 5 5 7S Second Sunday after Easter.r 4 23 8 M MULLINGAR STEEPLE CHASES 9T NEWMARKET SEC. SPR. MEET. r 4 20 6 10 W SHREWSBURY RACES. 11 T Lymington Fair. r 4 16 8 1 36 12 F Easter Term ends. Chelmsford F.s 7 38 9 2 1 13 S Old Mav Dav. 9 35 10 10 r 4 1310 2 26 10 45 11 15 14 Third Sunday after Gaster. s 7 4211 2 4811 50 notide 0 10 0 35 afternoon. r 4 814 4 3 21 Fourth Sunday after Easter. r 4 22 M Sherborne Fair 23 T EPSOM RACES 24 W THE DERBY DAY. 25 T Emmergreen (Dorset) Fair 26 F THE OAKS DAY s 7 53 1911 14 4 25 4 40 r 3 59 20 11 50 5 0 5 20 s 7 5721 Morning r 3 57220 23 s 7 5923 0 53 r 3 5524 1 20 5 40 6 5 6 30 6 55 7 20 7 55 8 30 9 10 s 8 125 1 49 9 40 10 15 29 MR. T. YACHT CLUB-1st MATCHг 3 5326 2 1910 5011 20 THE RACING IN APRIL. BY CRAVEN. ""Tis sweet to win-one's money."-BYRON, We have entered upon a racing season rich beyond all precedent in patronage, popularity, material, and money--that subtle property, which makes the mare go, and eke the horse and his rider also. The Derby of 1848 will be a fortune for the winner. In '48, "strings" as long and strong as squadrons of cavalry are common to our public training-stables; private persons-not to say gentlemen-have their studs ranging from twenty to three scores; crowds rush in thousands to race-courses, whither they are wont to saunter by dozens; and as for speculation, there is before me a London weekly journal of the 16th ult., wherein Sweeps and Lotteries are announced to be drawn forthwith, whose prizes exceed thirty thousand pounds! Opinion is divided as to the effect of these new devices upon the prosperity of the turf. The legs complain that they take the money out of the ring; the patrons of the sport, that they entice people to public-houses, and promote idle habits. There is, however, no longer any question as to their social fitness or legal standing. In reply to a question recently addressed in the House of Peers by Lord Littleton to Lord Lansdowne, the Lord President of the Council answered, he was not prepared to say the Government had any intention of interfering with them. Such being the case, there can be little doubt that they will become especial agents of private enterprise. The principal metropolitan thoroughfares will present their flaunting magazines and bazaars, interrupted by sober plate-glass windows and folding-doors of mahogany, superscribed "RACING LOTTERY OFFICE." This shall do the state some service. At a time when the general voice is hoarse in calling for a remission of taxation, these Sweeps and Lotteries come as real blessings to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He will find more customers at five per cent. for his licences than he can accommodate. He will of course require securities for the fulfilment of the contract proposed between the lottery promoter and the public-there will be stamps upon these, say two-and-a-half per cent., ditto for the licence to trade five per cent.-why shouldn't he squeeze out two-and-a-half more in extras? Here, then, we have ten per cent. by means of a tax doubly blessed; an impost that secures those whom it affects, at the same time that it saves their pockets-to say nothing of their morals. . Your tailor's foreman is determined to have "a shy at the Chester Cup." He sends his wife to the nearest office for a ticket, which she pays a sovereign for, and receives a chance in a scheme-" £100 to the first horse, £20 to the second, £10 to the third, and £1 10s. a-piece for the starters." He loses his sovereign-I had almost said naturally, but we will assume most likely. There's an end of it. In lieu of this, he repairs himself to the nearest public-house where there is a Chester Cup Sweep, "ten thousand tickets at a shilling each." This is a matter not so easily disposed of; he debates its probabilities with some familiar friend, weighs pro and con, and finishes by "having a shilling's worth anyhow"-together with four penn'orth of gin and water, which any gentlemen of the Stock Exchange will show you is thirty-three and a third per cent. as against the buyer-what the seller makes is between his conscience and the Exciseman. Now let us turn to the patriotic side of the inquiry. Suppose ten per cent. to be had out of the capital invested annually in these turf ventures, what does the reader imagine the revenue to be thus derived, beneficially for the payers, might amount to? Does he limit these speculations to £50,000 a month, during six months of the year, in the metropolis? If so, he is much within the mark; but taking it at that, we leave it to himself to decide-or to Cocker, if he prefer it -the profit the public revenue would reap from turning to advantage, in every sense of the term, the prevailing propensity for racing Sweeps and Lotteries. There's not a town of any account in Great Britain where they do not exist in hundreds; every village has its share, according to its respectability; not a beer-shop could show its face to the roadside without at least one draw every Saturday night. Ponder these data, we beseech you, Mr. Charles Wood; reason upon them with a liberal logic; transmute the dross of prejudice into the golden rule of appropriation; give us what good may be got out of evilhail the issue as the philosopher's stone of your stewardship. -so shall we Well, here is the Olympic year in the fair young spring-tide of its career. It were a good and gracious omen to give it welcome on the classic downs of Surrey; so, with your leave, there we bid it greeting. Of latter days there has grown a meeting thereon, which serves as a fitting prologue to that gorgeous equestrian spectacle of the maturer year, known in all climes and to all people as Epsom Races. We are indebted for this pleasant vernal tryst, which "comes before the swallow dares," to Mr. Henry Dorling, the lessee of the Grand Stand and race-course. During the short period of his management-may it endure for a thousand years-the whole system has undergone a complete reformation. The Stand has become a pavilion, fitted for occasions of pomp and circumstance- perfect and entire in all appliances and means of estate and comfort-save that, alas! its brave saloons and goodly refectories are available to that type of the three Gorgons rolled into one, Leatherlungs the Leg! O Dorling! that he should turn to stone thy pigeon pies, and to vinegar thy Moet and Lafitte. "I had rather live On cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, But this must pass. I was speaking of the Spring Meeting at Epsom, which now serves the turf with one of the most sporting days in all its calendar. London flies on the wings of hope and a locomotive towards Banstead Downs. For weeks and weeks have her citizens supped full of the promise of the Great Metropolitan Stakes; a boon banquet, for which you may buy tickets from a pound to a penny. The railway, moreover, being open all the way (that is, to the foot of the hill), great multitudes are moved at little cost-if with less enjoyment than in the good old time. However they got there, there they were in the forenoon of Friday the 7th ult. Equipages, indeed, did not abound; but the human animal was lavishly gathered together in all "Liberty, equality, and fraternity" is the motto of the English turf. If you didn't see it, you couldn't be persuaded that the flower of our aristocracy, the ultra-exclusiveness of May Fair, would voluntarily become its varieties. "So stale and cheap to vulgar company." Like death, it levels all distinctions. I make no disagreeable comments -draw no disparaging deductions-I only say the fact as I have found it; and so may everybody else that thinks fit to go about with open eyes. The meeting was got up in the most artistic fashion. We had all the officials from Newmarket; store of the best (and worst) company; the élite of the jockey corps, and a sprinkling of the awkward squad— by way of relief; a large consignment of horses; and racing enough for a glutton of the sport. In the forenoon there was sunshine; later it rained, and became bleak. There was not much of a pleasure character abroad; but people lounged about, looking here at the new Derby course-or, rather its commencement-there at the horses that were circumambulating the paddock in readiness for their engagements. Business was very slack; and there was no centralization of speculators in consequence of the multitude, which made the betting appear even worse than it was. In the matter of gossip, the thousand tongues of rumour were far from active. Mr. Mostyn's retirement from the Goodwood premiership was announced; there was whispering as to the details of a northern stud of some notoriety; and your "fellows that grumble at everything" mooted the convenience of throwing open the ring to all sorts and conditions of defaulters; but things went off very quietly. The racing opened with The Trial Stakes, which brought out eleven; though only half a score started, in consequence of Iapis having spilt the boy that rode him on his way to the post. Sponge won in a canter: this animal is in the Derby, in the name of Mr. Bristow. The next event on the list was the Great Metropolitan Stakes; whose importance demands an especial paragraph. When the handicap for this very sporting event came out, it was not approved of. Nobody would invest, and it was a dead letter at Tattersall's. While from thirty to forty nominations were in the market for the Chester Cup, some half dozen were talked about for the Metropolitan: vox et præterea nihil. The acceptances, indeed, bore no fair proportion to the entries; neither did the result, I am sure, at all assimilate with the conclusions of those who forfeited. Ninety-one subscribed, of whom thirty-nine declared, and twenty-four ultimately came to the post; the value of the stakes, after all deductions, being £1,495. The course is a very complicated one: resembling nothing familiar, that I can at this moment call to mind, so much as a hatchet with a long head, starting and finishing at the end of the handle. The preliminaries being performed in front of the Stand, people had the privilege of seeing what they had got for their money. Some of the steeds looked good; others bad; the majority, past all question, indifferent. Upon what principle the favourites had been selected by the ring it was rather puzzling to determine. Cracow (a 4 to 1 crack) was a queer sample of a pick of the basket-to be sure his bubble had burst before the day: Rat-trap, moreover, considering the weight, looked rather expensive" at the price." But thus it was; and all that good management could effect to afford equal main and chance for the lot was done. The two dozen being now saddled and mounted, and valued at the following estimate, viz., 7 to 2 against Jericho, 10 to 1 against Lady Wildair, 11 to 1 against Glen Saddel, 12 to 1 against Remembrance, ditto Rat-trap, 20 to 1 against Inheritress, ditto Moscow and Marietta-as fine a start set them going as ever was seen. To be sure it was a sight to open a pair of racing eyes that had closed with the Houghton of '47, that "charge of the" party-coloured "chivalry :" one departs from the letter of the quotation to avoid the risk of erring in its application. Up to the distance the front rank seemed pretty compact; but on diverging from the straight running at the bottom of the rise to the right from Tattenham Corner, the Maid of Lyme was first, waited on by Marietta, Glen Saddel a couple of lengths from the ladies, and a tail in process of elongation. The pace here was good; but on scaling the hill and turning to the left for home, it became very indifferent, and so let in the scabies. To the fall for the turn it was bad, but there it mended; and down Tattenham Corner it was very good, with Jericho and Inheritress leading, taking advantage of the fall as being the top weights. When I said leading, I only expressed my own views of the race at this point; others assigned the first places to Glen Saddel and Remembrance. However that may have been, the twain were first undeniably at the distance; Inheritress passing Remembrance there, and running a most severe race home with Glen Saddel, the colt only winning by a head, and the old mare defeating Remembrance by little more-Jericho, not placed by the judge, fourth-not beaten a length from the winner. This was good handicapping; or, not to quarrel with opinions, it was good racing. Inheritress appeared to me to run out at the finish; had she kept her line, the result might have been different. The child who steered Glen Saddel rode with consummate nerve of his judgment, those only who were in the melée with him are competent to form an estimate. At the finish, those who take their cue from the tablets exclaimed, "Where is Cracow ?" and echo answered, "The crack-oh!" A Two-year-old Stakes succeeded the great event. There were nine starters for it; but the race was between two-Christiana, the winner, and Farthingale. It was a merry spirt of half a mile. The winner is in next year's Oaks. The Railway Stakes followed, and the Surrey Hunt Stakes wound up the day's amusements: both races in heats, of which the two events produced five. These do not call for any especial observance; not so the occasion itself. It would be unjust both to the public and the promoters not to bear emphatic testimony to the liberal spirit and business-like style in which all the arrangements were conceived and carried out. The racing at Epsom, as planned and executed under the direction of Mr. Henry Dorling, is a model of turf economy. In every department the most perfect order and finished working prevails. All the persons employed understand their offices, and discharge them with zeal and courtesy. Let those who would see English horse-racing in the perfection of all its details, watch the progress of the next Derbyday; and unless they are satisfied, verily they will be hard to please. Croxton Park is an amateur exhibition very excellent of its kind in all sporting features; but it is not legitimate racing. Hampton Spring rows in the same boat. Moulsey Hurst, indeed, is not suited for regular |