SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 





attended, and the sport was superior to anything 

 witnessed on the course for many years. It was 

 in this year that a famous Nottinghamshire 

 sportsman, Lord George Bentinck, inaugurated a 

 sensational innovation in the transit of racehorses. 

 Instead of walking them from meeting to meeting, 

 as had hitherto been the practice, he conceived 

 the plan of conveying them in vans from one 

 place to another, and when, a few years later, 

 horses began generally to be conveyed by rail, it 

 gave an impetus to Nottingham, in common 

 with other meetings, for hitherto owners in the 

 south had hesitated before incurring the expense 

 and risk of a journey by road to the midlands. 



The Nottingham meeting of 1843 was notable 

 for the appearance of Mr. Plummer's Alice Haw- 

 thorn the Chester Cup winner of the previous 

 year. She secured the chief prize, beating 

 Mr. Clay's King of Trumps in a canter in both 

 heats. In the same year and again in 1844 she 

 won the Doncaster Cup. She was not only a 

 fine racer herself, but had the distinction of being 



' O 



the dam of Mr. Merry's Thormanby, perhaps 

 one of the gamest horses ever foaled, which won 

 the Derby in 1860 in a canter. 



In 1846 the races were transferred back to 

 August. On the passing of the Nottingham 

 Inclosure Act the race-course and stand had 

 fallen into the hands of the corporation, and a 

 committee of that body, with Mr. W. Page as 

 chairman, was elected to conduct the races, Mr. 

 J. G. Birley of Doncaster being appointed clerk 

 of the course in succession to Mr. W. Lacey, 

 who had held the position for many years. 



As illustrating the changes that have oc- 

 curred in racing conditions within the last sixty 

 years, it is interesting to glance at the programme 

 of events in the year above mentioned. It in- 

 cluded the Nottingham Stakes of 10 sovs. with 

 50 added ; the County Members' Plate of 50; 

 the Two-year-old Stakes of 13 sovs. each, with 50 

 added ; the Chesterfield Handicap of 20 sovs. each 

 with i oo added by the Earl of Chesterfield ; a Plate 

 of 50 given by noblemen and gentlemen of the 

 county (first day) ; the Tradesmen's Plate of 100 

 sovs. in specie, added to a handicap of 1 5 sovs. 

 each ; Her Majesty's Plate of 100 gs. ; a Cup of 

 IOO sovs. in specie, given by noblemen and gentle- 

 men of the county, added to a handicap of losovs. 

 each ; the Innkeepers' Plate of 50 sovs. each, 

 added to a Sweepstakes of 5 sovs. ; and a Selling 

 Stakes of 5 sovs. each, with 25 sovs. added 

 (second day). Although the sum added was 

 comparatively small, the total value of the stakes, 

 when the races filled well, often exceeded 200. 

 The first meeting under the auspices of the 

 corporation was a gratifying success, there being 

 good fields and tens of thousands of spectators 

 lining the slopes of the Forest. From this time 

 until about 1864 the Nottingham meetings 

 achieved a high reputation. The Nottingham- 

 shire Handicap, established in 1847, was an 



immediate success, the value for some years sel- 

 dom falling below 600, which was a large sum 

 for those days. Among its early winners were 

 Inheritress (winner of the Queen's Plate two 

 years in succession), Maid of Masham, Typee, 

 Pretty Boy, Newcastle, Wallace, and Atherstone. 

 Pretty Boy's victory came between his successes 

 in the Liverpool Cup and the Goodwood Stakes. 

 By this time there was a decline in heat-racing, 

 and about the middle of the 1 91)1 century this 

 method of deciding events appears to have been 

 discontinued, though there are veteran local 

 sportsmen living in Nottingham to-day who 

 remember that on one occasion, owing to dead 

 heats, four horses covered the 4 miles distance 

 four times, with the result that two of them 

 died from exhaustion. 



In 1853 Nottingham advanced to the dignity of 

 two meetings. A successful spring meeting was 

 inaugurated on 8 February of that year, the prin- 

 cipal event being the Nottingham Spring Handi- 

 cap of 10 sovs. each, with 50 sovs. added ; the 

 other events consisting of Sweepstakes of 5 sovs. 

 each, with 25 sovs. and 30 sovs. added; a Hurdle 

 Race of 5 sovs. with 40 added ; and a Hunters' 

 Stakes of 2 sovs. with a silver cup. Fisherman, 

 described by some of his admirers as ' the horse 

 of a century,' winner of the Ascot Cup two years 

 in succession, ran in the Trial Stakes at the Spring 

 Meeting of 1856, and won a poorly-contested 

 race. He appeared on the Forest in the three 

 following years and was undefeated on each 

 occasion. Many consider him the best horse 

 ever seen on the ground, but this claim is chal- 

 lenged by Rataplan, Parmesan, and St. Gatien. 

 A fine stayer, full of courage, and true as steel, 

 Rataplan was a great favourite with local race- 

 goers. He carried off the Doncaster Cup in 

 1855, and would undoubtedly have won the 

 Derby in 1853 if he had not had the misfortune 

 to be pitted against that marvel, West Australian, 

 winner of the Two Thousand, Derby, and St. 

 Leger. In the race for the Little John Plate in 

 1859 White Rose won from a field of fifteen or 

 sixteen, but she was not the best, and two of the 

 unplaced runners created a considerable stir in the 

 racing world later. One was Mr. Saxon's Ben 

 Webster, which, two years later, won the Ches- 

 ter Cup, and the other Mr. Henry Savile's Parme- 

 san, a grand horse, which not only achieved some 

 remarkable performances when a three-year-old 

 but defeated all the best horses of the day when 

 he was four. Only once had he to acknowledge 

 defeat and that was by Thormanby in the Ascot 

 Cup, and even then he finished in front of a 

 St. Leger and an Oaks winner. At the stud he 

 became the sire of Favonius and Cremorne, which 

 won the Derby in 1871 and 1872 respectively. 

 The winner of the St Leger in 1861, Mr. W. 

 I'Anson's Caller Ou, ran at the July meeting, 

 1864, and annexed the Queen's Plate, which 

 about this period was doubled in value. Subse- 





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