i68 THE TURF 



of flat races. The Derby has occupied as much as 

 3 min. 4 sees. — Ellington took this time — that is, at 

 the rate of a mile in a shade under 2 min. 3 sees. 

 Cloister only took 9 min. 42! sees, to win the Grand 

 National, and to win it in a canter by forty lengths ; 

 and there are these points to be borne in mind when 

 the two things are compared : the Grand National 

 course is thrice the length of the Derby course ; there 

 are thirty jumps, most of them of really formidable 

 size ; Cloister carried 12 st. 7 lb., nearly half as much 

 weight again as is carried at Epsom. Nevertheless 

 he. took only between 6 and 7 sees, more per mile 

 than had been taken by the Derby winner of 1856. 



It is doubtful when the first steeplechase was run, 

 but there is a record of a match in Ireland in 1752, 

 over four miles and a half of country, between a Mr. 

 O'Callaghan and Mr. Edmund Blake, the course 

 being "from the Church of Buttevant to the spire of 

 St. Leger Church." " The Druid," most charming of 

 Turf historians, speaks of a 'chase in Lancashire in 

 1792, eight miles from Barkby Holt to the Coplow 

 and back ; Mr. Charles Meynell, son of the M.F.H., 

 was first. Lord Forester second. Sir Gilbert Heathcote 

 third. Over the same course there was a match in 

 1824, for ^2,000 a side, between Captain Horatio 

 Ross on a horse of his own, and Captain Douglas on 

 a horse belonging to Lord Kennedy. The former 

 won. These early contests seem to have been for 

 only two or three starters, and I can find no reference 



