THE POSITION OF THE TURF 17 



The time test is of little value in this connection, for it 

 is only quite lately that any attention has been paid to it, 

 and courses vary so much that a performance on one ought 

 not to be compared with a performance on another. The 

 Rowley Mile, for instance, must in an ordinary way take 

 longer time than the miles at Epsom, Brighton, or elsewhere 

 where the track slopes downward. At the moment an Orme 

 colt named Harrow holds the mile record of i min. 35* sec, 

 but this was done at Lingfield, where nearly half the distance 

 is downhill. For the Rowley Mile (i mile 11 yards) the 

 record of i min. 40? sec. is credited to Galtee More, yet 

 no one would suggest that Harrow was in the same class 

 as the famous Irish horse. 



The records, as published from time to time, are all of 

 modern date, and this either suggests that the speed of the 

 present day is better than that of any former period, or that 

 "clocking" is much more carefully attended to than it used 

 to be. 



To take a recent example, Clarehaven won the Caesare- 

 witch in 1900, in the record time of 3 min, 5 if sec. The 

 Caesarewitch distance is 2 miles 2 furlongs and 35 yards, 

 and on this particular day the " going " was in first-rate 

 condition for fast time, while there was no head wind. The 

 winner, a four-year-old, carried within a pound of 8 stone, and 

 although she had won her race quite two furlongs from 

 home, she was not eased up the hill from the Abingdon 

 Mile Bottom, but allowed to stride along to the end. 



Perhaps the Liverpool Grand National throws some light 

 on the subject, and if we can take the early times as trust- 

 worthy the steeplechase horse of to-day is a vastly superior 

 animal to his predecessor of half a century ago. Thus we 

 find that Lottery, a great horse and a famous winner in 

 his day, won the race in 1838 in 14 min. 53 sec, and that 

 Cloister won in 1893 in 9 min. 42! sec. On the face of 

 it it would appear that Cloister was in a totally different 

 class from Lottery, and I have little doubt that such was the 

 case. In Lottery's race there were seventeen runners, so 

 that, in all probability, there was something to bring them 

 along, but I can find no account which mentions the state 



