CHARLEY BOYCE, STEEPLECHASE RIDER. 121 



their victories. It is so full of interest that I append the 

 inscriptions thereon as follows : — 



1. Bridegroom; Winner of the first Grand National Hunt 

 Steeplechase. 4 miles. Market Harborough, April i8th, i860. 

 Carried 12 st. 31 ran. 



2. Bridegroom; Winner of the Liverpool Autumn Steeple- 

 chase, November 12th, 1862. Carried lost, 41b. 3 miles. 

 6 ran. 



3. Bridegroom; Winner of the Farndon Hill Steeplechase, 

 April 8th, 1861. Carried 12 st. 3 miles. 4 ran. 



4. Bridegroom ; Winner of the Liverpool Hunt Club Steeple- 

 chase, April i2th, 1862. Carried 12 st. 4 miles. 8 ran. 



5. Bridegroom; Winner of the Liverpool Hunt Club Steeple- 

 chase, April loth, 1863. Carried 12 st. 4 miles. 9 ran. 



6. Bridegroom; Winner of the Wetherby Steeplechase Cup, 

 value 100 Sovs. Carried 13 st. 5 ran. 



7. Alcibiade; Winner of the Grand National Steeplechase, 

 Liverpool, March 14th, 1865, Carried 11 st. 4 lb. 23 ran. 



8. Queensferry ; Winner of the second Grand National Hunt 

 Steeplechase, Market Harborough, April i8th, 1861. Carried 

 12 St. 17 ran. 



While on the subject of 'chasing,' one of the 

 smartest men that ever followed Mr. Tailby's hounds 

 was the celebrated steeplechase rider, Charley Boyce. 

 How he won the Grand National at Liverpool, for the 

 late George Hodgman, on Emigrant, in 1857, with his 

 right arm strapped to his side owing to a recent hunting 

 accident is fully described in that Veteran's most in- 

 teresting book "Sixty Years on the Turf." Therein he 

 says " of Boyce, as a man or as a rider, I know not 

 how to write too eulogistically. To my mind, over a 

 country, he was so far the best of his contemporaries 

 that 1 should not care to select a second. He was a 

 splendid specimen of physical development, and singu- 

 larly handsome ; his manners were charming." I can 

 heartily endorse all that Hodgman says. Boyce lived at 

 Wigston in the latter part of the sixties, and many a 



