FAMOUS CHASERS AND THEIR RIDERS. 381 



their vigour in a remarkable manner. In this Liverpool 

 (i89i)four previous winners ran — Ilex, Roquefort, Gamecock, 

 and Voluptuary, the latter (who was afterwards to be seen on the 

 stage of Drury Lane Theatre in a sporting melodrama) being 

 thirteen years old. He ran in Iroquois' Derby in 1881. 



Cries had for a long time past been rife about the deca- 

 dence of steeplechasing. The National Hunt Committee, it 

 was said in certain quarters, were killing the sport by their regu- 

 lations as to fences and on other points; they had abolished the 

 (absolutely meaningless) distinction between ' hunters,' animals 

 that ran at weight for age and lost their certificates if handi- 

 capped, and handicap horses, and, in short, that steeplechasing 

 was on its last legs. Pessimists are to be found everywhere ; 

 but it may be noted in regard to this cry that point to point 

 races had increased threefold during the last five years, the 

 number of horses that ran under National Hunt rules had also 

 been largely augmented, and for the National of 1892 a field 

 of twenty-five, the most numerous since Disturbance won in 

 1S73, had gone to the post. There were likewise twenty-five 

 starters when The Lamb won for a second time in 1871, and 

 when Emblematic won in 1864; on the occasion of his first 

 success the Lamb beat twenty opponents, and the Colonel, in 

 1869 and 1870, beat respectively twenty-one and twenty-rwo \ 

 Emblem in 1863 beat fifteen, so that the 'last leg theory,' with 

 a field of twenty-five, does not seem very tenable. Cloister had 

 now 12 St. 3 lb. to carry, but he was nevertheless made favour- 

 ite, for under the care of Mr. Arthur Yates he was known to 

 have improved, though shortly before the race a scare arose 

 when the rumour gained currency that in a four-mile gallop on 

 the flat with his stable companion, The Midshipmite, there had 

 been little to choose between them. Confidence was reposed 

 in Cloister, however, with Mr. J. C. Dormer in the saddle — a 

 remarkably accomplished young horseman who had rapidly 

 come to the front, and held his place at the head of the best of 

 gentleman riders. Owing to a fall while riding in a little selling 

 race, Sensier, the usual pilot of Midshipmite, was incapacitated, 



