166 RIDING 



By his lordship's will it was directed that none of the stud 

 should be sold ; those that were sufficiently forward were tried, 

 and the bad ones doomed to the pistol. It is said that 

 Musket was one of these, but that Chaloner, believing there 

 was more in Musket than the horse showed, 'persuaded the 

 owner to spare his life. He won the Ascot Stakes and 

 Alexandra Plate, and was the sire of Petronel. At the break- 

 up of Mr. Payne's stud he was hired for his life by Mr. Thomas 

 Russell for 55o/. and shipped to New Zealand, where in his 

 first year he got Martini-Henry out of Sylvia by Fisherman 

 out of Juliet, who won the two great Australasian races, the 

 Melbourne Derby and the Melbourne Cup ; he also got Maxim, 

 Trenton, Nordenfelt, Carbine, and Tirailleur, all winners of the 

 chief events on the Australasian turf. The mares which he has 

 got give every promise of becoming first-class matrons, for their 

 stock is very promising. He died of rupture of the kidneys in 

 1885. In the season 1889-90 he headed the list of winning 

 sires in New Zealand, his stock having won 9,5227. 



Who has not wished that he might begin life afresh with the 

 experience he now possesses ? Young Australia is not far from 

 being in this fortunate position. She began life with the experi- 

 ence of eight centuries and a clean sheet on which to work out 

 her destiny. When her towns were in their earliest infancy she 

 'reserved' sites which were considered the most suitable for 

 racecourses, the consequence being that no considerable town 

 is without one, modelled as far as circumstances will permit on 

 the Flemington racecourse, near Melbourne a course, without 

 any sort of doubt, the best laid out both by nature and by man 

 of any in the world. 



Flemington is the modern Coliseum. Its amphitheatre of 

 hills, terraced like a Rhenish vineyard, rise behind and around 

 the grand stand, enabling everybody to see the whole of every 

 race. There is no business opening at Flemington for the 

 gentleman who at English race-meetings walks about with a 

 form on his head to enable short people for a few pence to see 

 over the heads of tall people in front of them. 



