NATIONAL HUNT STEEPLECHASE 223 



1875 



Hitherto the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase, 

 unless we except Bristol, which course was run by a 

 Company, had been run over a natural course, but this 

 year the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase was run 

 in an enclosed ground, Sandown Park being the venue. 

 With this new departure the character of the courses 

 since run over have, with few exceptions, been quite 

 different to those crossed in the earlier years, but now 

 that regulation fences are de rio^tietcr and the horses have 

 to take them if they embark in the higher branches 

 of steeplechasing, there is no harm in their being 

 schooled over them from the very first. The placed 

 horses were : — 



Mr. Smyth's "Gazelle," 4 yrs., 10 st. 



10 lb Mr. Flutter . i 



., Fordham's "Pilgrim," 4 yrs., 10 st. 



10 lb ,, Crawshaw 2 



,, H. Behren's " Walloon," aged, 12 st. 



10 lb Capt. Smith . 3 



Sixteen others started. Betting: — 10 to i Gazelle; 100 to 30 

 Pilgrim; 10 to i Walloon. 



Pilgrim made the running. Bushranger coming down 

 at the second fence through over-jumping himself. 

 Then Marquis of Ely took the lead as far as the water 

 jump, where he fell, leaving King with the lead, of 

 which he was deprived at the stand by Walloon and 

 Pilgrim. Soon after entering the country for the 

 second time, the issue of the race was confined to 

 about half-a-dozen, and in the end Gazelle won by about 

 twenty lengths, about the same distance dividing second 

 and third. 



