"THE LIVERPOOL" 



Lord Sefton seems to have been the controller or 

 dictator of Aintree, and regularly to have added the 

 duties of starter to his varied responsibilities. He 

 might presumably have suspended a jockey at this par- 

 ticular meeting, but I do not imagine that his authority 

 would have extended to any other fixtures, 



1850-51 



In 1850 the field numbered thirty-two, Peter Simple 



favourite at 5 to i, burdened, however, with i2st. 2 lb., 



and up to the nineties it was an article of faith with 



many keen followers of jumping that even 12 stone was 



a prohibitive weight. Presumably the failure of Peter 



Simple and of other heavily burdened animals led to 



this belief and appeared to confirm it. The race — I am 



speaking of 1 8 50 — went to a lightly weighted outsider, 



Abd-el-Kader, 9st. 12 lb., the property of Mr. Osborne, 



a keen student and supporter of racing, who contributed 



to the sporting press of the period, and was the author 



of one or two books. The story went that, while 



travelling on the Shrewsbury coach, he took a fancy to 



the near leader, a good-looking brown mare, whom he 



bought for fifty guineas, and after hunting her in 



Ireland and winning some steeplechases, sent her to the 



paddocks, Abd-el-Kader being one of her offspring. 



The horse won again the following season, and one 



fancies that he must have done little meantime, have 



injured rather than increased his reputation, as he was 

 B 17 



