THE PROGRESS OF THE SPORT. 43 



which had been constructed for the purpose of carrying show 

 cattle. The wheels were not more than eighteen inches high, 

 and in this lumbering van, drawn by four post-horses, Elis 

 was safely conveyed from Danebury to Doncaster, to the 

 consternation of the ring, and the no small advantage of his 

 owner, Lord Lichfield, whose horses were managed by Lord 

 George.^ 



A more commodious conveyance was afterwards built, in 

 which Crucifix and Sal-volatile were vanned in July 1837 from 

 Danebury to Newmarket, where the former, after winning the 

 July, ran a dead-heat for the Chesterfield Stakes. W. Day and 

 W. Goater were the attendant lads. Now-a-days many owners 

 possess private horse-vans on railways. 



Precise chronology in turf matters is not always possible, 

 but speaking broadly, the year i860 saw the dawn of a new era. 

 The primary cause of this change was the expansion of the 

 railroad and telegraph system, giving, as it did, increased 

 facilities to the Press for enlightening the public as to the doings 

 of studs and stables all over the kingdom, and that treatise 

 on 'racing' would indeed be a meagre one which failed to 

 show in some degree the influence for good or evil exercised on 

 its destinies by the Press. About the above-mentioned date, 

 sporting correspondents, covering themselves with the plea of 

 ' public utility,' began to penetrate everywhere, and partly by 

 toadying those w^ho liked to see their names in print, partly by 

 holding satire /;? terrorem over weaker natures, for some time 

 assumed a position most annoying to owners of racehorses. 

 Part of this phase of ' espionage ' has now passed aw^ay, and 

 many of those employed on such business have received a 

 rough conge from most of the respectable stables, though there 

 are still some owners, luckily few and far between, who are 

 pleased with the fulsome praise bestowed on them by this order 

 of reporters. The touting system is now more generally 

 practised on racecourses, where stable-boys and jockeys are 



1 As the late Lord Winchilsea once pithily observed, ' It is difficult to say 

 what Lord George Bentinck and relays of post-horses could not have done.' 



