ORGANISED STEEPLECHASING 49 



includino- the advertisements ! The Colonel died on the 

 I 2th of January 1866 at his house in Bryanston Square 

 at the age of 82, and was buried in Kensal Green 

 Cemetery. 



If the fences which had to be encountered in the St. 

 Albans steeplechase of 1834 were described as insignifi- 

 cant, the same could not be said of those of 1835. 



The start took place near the bridge on Colney 

 Heath, and the original intention was that the horses 

 should start on the London side of a somewhat formid- 

 able brook, which meant that it would have to be faced 

 before the horses had well settled down into their stride. 

 To this the riders objected, saying that it " was too big 

 to begin with," so it was agreed that the beginning 

 should be made on the other side. 



The competitors were Mr. Baring's Caliph (R. 

 Christian), Mr. P. Frith's Laurestina, Mr. Anderson's 

 The Poet, Mr. Weston's The Flyer, Mr. Parker's Cum- 

 berton, Mr. R. Bevan's Captain Bob, Mr. Elmore's 

 Grimaldi, Captain Fairlie's Norma (Captain Becher), 

 Captain Williamson's Bittern, Mr. Seffert's Parasol, 

 and Mr. Theobold's Shamrock. 



Nothing being thought to succeed like success. The 

 Poet was made favourite on the score of his victory 

 in the previous year, while Norma was second favourite 

 at five to one — probably because Captain Becher was 

 riding her. It was a race of some incident all through, 

 as about a mile and a half from the start Grimaldi 

 fell while lying second to Dan Seffert's Parasol. 

 Billy Bean,^ who was riding him, had a violent 



■^ Bill Bean, or "Squire" Bean, as he used to be called in his most 

 flourishing days, died early in April 1866, when between eighty and ninety 

 years old, so that he would have been born when the last century had about 



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