NEWINIARKET 43 



The great beauty of Newmarket racing is that for every 

 horse can be chosen the course which suits him best. A 

 really good horse is equally at home on any and every 

 course, and the best of great horses are quite as good at five 

 furlongs as they are at two miles. La Fleche, for instance, 

 won the July Cup of six furlongs, and the Ascot Cup of 

 two miles and a half; but she was an exceptional mare 

 to whom all courses were alike. It must be understood, 

 however, that there are many horses who must be well 

 " placed " if they are to come out in winning colours, and 

 a clever placer of horses will generally run his nag where 

 he knows the course will be to its liking. Supposing the 

 horse is trained at headquarters, he need not be taken 

 away to run, for every sort of course but one is open to 

 him on the heath. He can be placed so that the finish of 

 his race is uphill, downhill, or on the level ; but he cannot 

 get a circular course, and it is a fact that a certain class of 

 nag does much better round the turns than on a straight- 

 away course. At Newmarket all the courses are straight, or 

 nearly so, and therefore it happens that the weak spot in 

 rogues or welshers is almost invariably found out there. 



Nowadays as many as eight meetings are held at 

 Newmarket during the course of the racing year. Three 

 of these take place in the spring — Craven, First Spring 

 and Second Spring ; two in the summer — First July and 

 Second July ; and three in the autumn — First October, 

 Second October, and Houghton. They entail twenty-nine 

 or thirty days' racing amongst them. 



The Craven Meeting generally has a four days' programme 

 unless it falls in Easter week, and is perhaps the least 

 interesting of the series. It is pretty well off for handicaps, 

 but its weight - for - age races are not of much account 

 nowadays, and it includes no event of the first magnitude. 

 The Crawford and Babraham Plates are its principal 

 handicaps, and there are three of what I may term second- 

 class three-year-old prizes, viz. the Newmarket Biennial, 

 the Column Produce Stakes, and the Craven Stakes, of 

 which the two first-named are run on the Rowley Mile, and 

 the Craven Stakes on the Ancaster Mile. There is also 



