CHAPTER VI. 



Steeplechasing in the year 1835 — The Great Race at Aylesbury : 

 Captain Beecher wins from Mr. Allnutt — The Races the year 

 following : Jem Mason is too clever — The Royal Hunt Club : 

 Anecdotes of a Horse in their Dining-Room — Anecdotes of 

 the Rev. C.Erie and Bishop Wilberforce — Mr. Carroll's Horses, 

 Family, and Jokes. 



The annals of the steeplechase proper seem to com- 

 mence in the }'ear 1834, when the first important 

 event of acknowledged record came off at St. Albans, 

 where the renowned horses, Moonraker and Grimaldi, 

 made so great a sensation. St. Albans can boast of 

 having provided the course for the first gre.it public 

 steeplechase, but I have always held that Aylesbury 

 had the right to second honours. 



One evening, at the celebrated " Crockfords " Club, 

 discussing the peculiarities of the various hunting 

 districts in England, Mr. Henry Peyton, the eldest son 

 of that " prince of whips," Sir Henry Peyton — whose 

 yellow drag and faultless team of greys with their 

 brightly kept brass harness, with " Old George," his 

 esteemed stud-groom, and Joe Buswell his second man 

 " perched up aloft" behind him, were a thing of renown 

 in the "Good Old Times" — spoke of the difficulties of 



