i8o RACING. 



CHAPTER XII. 



OVER A DISTANCE OF GROUND. 



THE practice of trying horses over a long course, viz. of two 

 miles or upwards, becomes, we are informed, yearly more 

 honoured in the breach than in the observance as, for that 

 matter, does the running in public over those distances and 

 comparatively scanty are the illustrations we are able to provide 

 for the guidance of those who may yet wish to subject their 

 horses to this ordeal, which was common enough five-and- 

 twenty years ago. 



In 1858, if we may venture to take the reader back so far 

 as that remote period, Mr. George Lambert tried Rocket for the 

 Cesarewitch (which he won from the big field of thirty-five 

 runners), to give Queenstown, also three years old, 19 Ibs., two 

 miles, on Lewes Racecourse. The ground was judiciously 

 selected, for they knew Queenstown liked the course, she 

 having won the Lewes Handicap, with 8 st. i lb., and Jem Goater 

 on her back, though the company behind her was very moderate. 

 Ridden by Fordham she won this trial. Custance was, of course, 

 on Rocket, but either he came on rapidly, or the party thought 

 there was a mistake somewhere, for a few days afterwards they 

 tried again the same course, at the same weights, and this time 

 Rocket won cleverly. Tame Deer, a five-year-old of Lord 

 Portsmouth's, was also in the trial, but at what weight, or by 

 whom ridden, we know not. J. Goater was probably the 

 jockey. 



Rocket's Cesarewitch is very ancient history now, yet that 

 Mr. Lambert can stay as well as anything ever trained in those 



