ASCOT AND GOODWOOD 87 



in charge of the nags £;^$ was charged, and this bill was 

 shown everywhere for weeks, and finally published in a 

 sporting newspaper. This was in 1890, and I think that 

 since that time many of the smaller owners and trainers 

 have fought shy of the place in consequence of the high 

 charges. At all events, careful men will not spend ;^20 over 

 running a plater in a i^ioo stake at Goodwood when they 

 can do the same thing for less than half the sum elsewhere. 

 At the Goodwood Meeting of 1898 four selling races were 

 advertised ; one of them failed to fill, and the other three 

 brought out only seventeen horses amongst them. Yet just 

 previously Selling Plate fields had been very large all over 

 the country, and a winner at Sandown (Little Saint) had 

 been sold for 1,600 guineas, while a week or two before 

 Fairy Field had been bought in for 1,150 guineas, after 

 winning at Kempton Park. 



For many years past the Goodwood Cup has been but 

 a second-rate sort of affair, which has seldom attracted the 

 best Cup horses of the day. Such Ascot Cup winners as 

 Persimmon and Isinglass never attempted to win the Good- 

 wood Cup, probably because such a success would hardly 

 have helped them at the stud. Indeed, we have to go back 

 to the middle eighties, when The Bard and St. Simon were 

 winners of the race, to find the very best class, and to 1889 

 to find an Ascot Cup winner in the list. The last to com- 

 plete the double event was Trayles, but previous to St 

 Simon's day the list contained many great names, and I 

 need only mention Isonomy, Kincsem, Hampton, Doncaster, 

 Flageolet, and Favonius as winners well within my memory. 

 Indeed, I saw Siderolite win before any of these had come 

 to fame ; and in those days the race was unquestionably 

 invested with far greater prestige than has been attached to 

 it of late. All the more welcome, then, was the news that 

 the conditions had been overhauled, and the race made one 

 of ;^2,ooo value. For this reform Lord March is responsible, 

 and it is sincerely to be hoped that owners will respond to 

 this call, and make the Goodwood Cup what it once was — 

 second to none in importance among long-distance races, 

 save to the Gold Cup at Ascot. 



