ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 



291 



index horses of the same name. This has often been fomid difficult, 

 and corrections of any errors or omissions that may be observed 

 in this or other parts of the book will be gladly received and 

 attended to. 



The names of the original members of the committee will 

 be found in this book. The practice of appointing five of their 

 number to act as stew^ards, who retire yearly by rotation, seems 

 to have been adopted later. 



For motives which need not be detailed, it was considered 

 desirable, at the end of the year 1883, to dissolve the Grand 

 National Hunt Committee. The dissolution w^as, however, 

 nothing more than a preliminary to re-formation. The hitherto 

 existing Committee had done excellent service to the cause of 

 steeple-chasing and of that offshoot of the sport, hurdle-racing, 

 which, by means of the amount of money to be won at it, and 

 the fact that it was to be won by animals halfway between 

 racehorses and chasers— by half-schooled chasers with a great 

 deal still to learn — has done so much to interfere with chasint^f 

 proper. But it was felt that even better service might be per- 

 formed by a re-organised Committee which would for several 

 reasons be more closely allied to the Jockey Club itself. As a 

 matter of fact the great majority of the names which appeared 

 as a first draft of the new Grand National Hunt Committee in 

 a number of 'The Racing Calendar' for February 1884, had 

 been on the Committee which was dissolved. There were 

 found to be a few accessions, who were likely to have influence 

 to further the best interests of the sport, among these thirty 

 members whom the stewards had power to elect as a nucleus. 

 They included — 



Lord Marcus Beresford 

 Mr. E. C. Burton 

 Col. T. E. Byrne 

 Hon. R. Carington 

 Viscount Castlereagh 

 *Sir Geo. Chetwynd, Bart. 



*Earl of Coventry 

 *Mr. W. G. Craven 

 Colonel J. A. T. Garratt 

 Lord Fitzhardinge 

 Colonel Harford 

 Earl of Harrincton 



* Members of the Jockey Club, 



U 2 



