406 NEWMARKET FIRST and second SPRING MEETINGS.

rate: either, then, all his victors were flyers, or he is a bad-hearted horse; there is little difficulty in deciding between those alternatives. Confederate ran stoutly and honestly; it was a very creditable debut, and proved that he was not without claims to the character of a racer: I hold him to be the best of the twenty-five to one of the Derby outsiders. The race for the 1,000 Guineas Stakes was a burlesque on the word. Crucifix could have carried one of her opponents, and beaten the other. The Newmarket Stakes were won by Scutari cleverly; Angelica running third in a very indifferent form. This was his third time of running, having, in each race, carried a fresh jockey, in all cases with the same result; the opinion I gave of him in the Craven has, so far, been tolerably corroborated. He is matched for £500 over the flat in the Houghton against Assassin, 8 st. 7 lb. each, and, if he will give his running, it will be in an affair of that description.

The Second Spring is described in a dozen lines. The weather was cold and wretched; the sport-racing in atrophy. The Rowley Mile Plate was won by a Derby nag; but, as the lot he beat was not quite a Derby field, the victory was worth the fifty run for, and little more. The Fifty Pound Handicap Plate brought out Teleta, a winner with 6 st. 10 lb. on her, but the field, at the weights, was far from a formidable one, as the Turf Register will shew. The Suffolk Stakes, won by the King of the Peak, carrying 6 st. 7 lb., was a performance of a similar character, and beyond these there was nothing that requires notice. Thus closed the Spring racing at Newmarket, having placed a few Derby favourites hors de combat, but without throwing the faintest gleam upon the probable result of that engrossing event. It has been an extraordinary good race for the general bettor; that it will be a brilliant one, as a Turf exhibition, I greatly doubt. Nothing that we have seen, likely to come out in it, is above mediocrity. Launcelot and the Melody colt may be flyers; we must take that upon assertion. The Oaks, whatever the event, is certain to be a dull affair. Traffic upon it is utterly stagnant; and little interest will be excited by a contest regarded as over before a blow is struck. But what of all this? Of the myriads who throng to Epsom, how many per cent. ever see a horse or jockey,—or care whether such things be? Pigeon pies, lobster salads, iced champagne, and a pleasant party,these, and these alone, form the true cockney conception of a Derby day.

Thus closed the betting at Tattersall's for the month, at half-past six p. m., on the 28th, at which hour we left the room, which still contained a few loiterers. The only point that calls for notice, beyond the quotation of the odds, is, that although the Melody colt and Launcelot are quoted at even, the latter had decidedly the call, and had all the weight of money on his side. The Derby betting was by no means animated; and the Oaks, all but a dead letter.

STEEPLE-CHASING IN IRELAND:

A SKETCH.

BY SHAMROCK.

(Continued from page 365.)

Up to the year 1810, steeple-chases were few, and far between, and appear to have been entirely confined to the southern counties of Galway, Cork, Tipperary, and Waterford: with regard to the north, until the steeple-chase for the Belfast Cup, in 1833, which Ferguson won, with old Barkiston beating Bobadilla and a large field, and won the stakes the next day, with Bobadilla beating Barkiston, and all others, in a canter, I do not recollect anything in the public line there; the north is much behind the south in sporting affairs. In the year 1811, Waterford opened with two steeple-chases, and Tipperary followed: Limerick brought her boundaries (and a woful bound a nag must take to leap them) into play; and Galway had two regular meetings. In 1818, Lord Clanricarde (in my mind, the best and most desperate man in Europe over a stone-wall country) brought Eyre Court into notice; George Smith (who won, with Shamrock, the other day) made the Queen's County and Ormond ring with his praises; the Mr. Quins, of Loloher Castle, enacted prominent parts o'er the ensanguined plains of Tipperary; Mr. Pyne (may the sod rest light upon him!), Mr. Montgomery, cum multis aliis, astonished the Corkagians; Mr. Croker, nommé Friz, shewed them the "tems de jour," in Limerick. Oxalic acid was discovered, and the poisoned mahogany boottop found its antidote in its bane. A good receipt for top-boots, and a work upon cleaning leather breeches, superseded "Chesterfield's Letters on Politeness," and was added to the family library; and the buds of the spring steeple-chases jutted healthfully into the sporting world; they blossomed quickly; and, Now, by their fruits shall ye know them.

The first heavy grievance, in the present age of steeple-chasing, lies in the addition of heats;-writing about heats puts me in such a rage that I can scarcely hold my pen the practice is of late growth, and has been brought upon the sod since Martin's Act; if it had existed before that period, I am sure that excellent legislator would have shewn his execration of such a proceeding. Of all animals in the world, the fondest friend-the greatest source of joy-the most thankful agent, is the horse. He bears the sportsman to the chase, the husband to his home, the lover to his mistress. Every other animal, in going across a country, finds it enough to do to carry himself; and yet this noble animal at all times commands, and very often overpowers them in pace and distance, carrying upon his back, independent of the trappings of art, which must, more or less, cripple the actions of nature, a solid mass of flesh, varying from eleven to fifteen stone. The buckhound, old writers state to be the longest goer; but we know that, for duration and pace, the foxhound ranks much higher;

and of the numerous instances of his pluck, I need not make any remark; but what is his pluck in comparison with that of the horse? The foxhound obeys, in all things, the dictates of nature; he goes his own pace at his fences, and chooses his method of taking them. The horse cannot claim the independence of a single stride; he is curbed in verity. How often, as with bright eye, and head erect, he is going at a fence, does Prudence, seated in the seat, cry "Hold, enough!" How seldom do we find horse and man of one mind. In how many instances have I seen" God's great creation" spurring, curbing, and abusing a poor animal, and proving himself far the greater brute of the two. Then, why should not all men of merciful minds join to stop the further practice of cruelty in this already savage sport of steeple-chasing? Would the Duke of Wellington have charged at Waterloo with the wounded heroes of the day; and, if he did, could he have succeeded? And we all know that the pluck of man excels all created beings (his knowledge of danger, and venturing upon it, being the proof); and yet, how many horses, labouring under severe cuts from a first heat, and dead lame, are brought out to run a second, ay, and a third; while, when coming up to the post, I have seen the spurs stuck into their already lacerated sides, to make them even trot up! I recollect a race, about six years ago, in which five horses started to run twomile heats, Irish measure; and the first heat was a fast and desperate one, between three of them, one dropping the heat. The second was a good heat, and won by a different horse; the same horse last, and just inside the distance. The third heat, the distance-saver won; they came out for a fourth, and two of them were dead lame; and I was asked to look at a third. I found him in positive fever, although heavily clad, and placed in some sort of shelter, behind a bank. I recommended a strong cordial, and his being immediately taken home. His owner said he had had two strong cordials already, and that out he should go. The worst horse (so far as brilliant powers constitute the difference between good and bad), who had been hardly able to save his distance, won the race Of the other three, one (a beautiful grey stallion) was lamed for life; the fevered horse died the day after, of inflammation of the lungs, and fever; I bought the third, and he was never worth sixpence. Even with the greatest care, he became nearly hide-bound; and it was only a twelve-month's run, on a particularly good soil, that enabled me to try him again; but the moment he got hard food, he began again to decline, and was, ultimately, sold for fifteen pounds. I regret to be obliged to add, that I have been steward of several steeple-chases, when heats were always introduced; and my quietus (for I always thought it a cruelty) was, that, if there were no heats, we should have none of the paying spectators, who are quite necessary to help the sporting persons through the heavy expenses attendant upon steeple-chasing. Upon the last occasion in which I acted as a steward, I refused to join, unless there was only to be "one fly" for the different plates; and, after some remonstrances, I carried my point; and what was the consequence ? The meeting was just as fully attended as ever; and as I went from carriage to carriage, I so completely enlisted their fair occupants in favour of my design, by stating to them the cruelty inflicted upon the noble animal, that they declared they would never appear upon a