366 STEEPLE-CHASING. 



matter of fact, throughout the last half of the struggle, Mr. 

 Hobson raced with everything that came near him. Had not 

 Austerlitz been an exceptionally good and game horse he could 

 never have won. The horse was lazy on the flat, between 

 fences, but when he saw his jump before him he cleared it in 

 grand style. Like his predecessor Regal, whose valuable 

 qualities doubtless arose from the double cross of the Bird- 

 catcher blood, Austerlitz was remarkably well bred, being by 

 Rataplan Lufra, who was also the dam of that splendid 

 horse Lowlander, and of the Duke of Hamilton's Goodwood 

 Stewards' Cup winner, Midlothian. 



Shifnal, a moderate horse, won in 1878 from a poor field of 

 only a dozen, and next year The Liberator, ridden by Mr. 

 Garrett Moore, who, under the tuition of his father, had become 

 an exceedingly fine steeple-chase rider, found little difficulty in 

 taking the race, the horse being a wonderfully clever fencer. 



Empress had things very much her own way in 1880 in 

 what, notwithstanding the fairly good time recorded (a very un- 

 certain test, as so much depends on the state of the ground and 

 other conditions), was probably a false-run race. They began 

 very slowly, and this was against several horses that might 

 have possessed a good chance had the pace been stronger. 

 The Comte de St. Sauveur, the owner of Wild Monarch, 

 second favourite, gave his jockey, I'Anson, such strict orders 

 to wait that he was forced to obey. The Comte's idea was 

 that, * You never see a horse jump off in front and keep there all 

 the time,' though there are naturally cases in which, if a horse 

 that can gallop and stay does not jump off in front, he is not 

 likely to be in front as they pass the post. The Comte made no 

 allowance for contingencies, and the manner in which the race 

 was run extinguished whatever chance Wild Monarch might 

 have had. Empress, a mare that had been carefully schooled 

 under the supervision of that experienced horse-master, Mr. 

 Linde, of the Curragh, won, in the hands of Mr. T. Beasley, by 

 two lengths from The Liberator, though it was the opinion of 

 many sound judges that, had the winner of the previous year 



