lo STEEPLECHASING 



Tower, however, a constant follower of the Oakley 

 hounds, suggested that a more effectual method of 

 keeping out the race-horse would be to put up fences, 

 for the race-horse had not then been taught to jump. 

 Bedford was always noted for being a pretty stiff 

 course, a reputation that must have attached to it 

 from the very first. 



Mr. Tower reduced his proposition to writing, and 

 he suggested that the fences should be built up four 

 feet six inches high with a strong bar at the top, to be 

 bound with iron or cart axle-trees. The iron binding, 

 however, was rejected, and a strong bar alone was to 

 be substituted. No sooner were the conditions made 

 public than eleven subscribers entered their names. 

 Thereupon Mr. C. T. Palmer, M.P. for Reading, de- 

 clared that the race was of an impossible description, 

 but Mr. Tower offered him 200 to 20 that it would 

 come off, but on Mr. Palmer standing out for still 

 more liberal odds they were extended to 200 to 15. 

 As the sequel showed, Mr. Palmer lost and paid up 

 at once. 



The race was run in three-mile heats. On the 

 night before the race not a bed was to be had in 

 Bedford, nor could a post-horse be obtained for fifty 

 miles round ; still when the time came for starting, two 

 competitors only were found willing to go to the post — 

 Mr. Tower and Mr. Spence. There were eight fences 

 in the three-mile course, and every one was cleared by 

 the two horses ridden. Mr. Spence won on his mare 

 Fugitive (late Off-she-goes), and the tradition is that 

 she was the flying mare of that name once the property 

 of Colonel Mellish. Mr. Tower rode his chestnut 

 mare Cecilia, by Marc Antony, dam by Spartacus. 

 Even in those distant days the obtaining the certificate 

 of a Master of Hounds appears to have been a condi- 

 tion precedent for at least some steeplechases, for in 



