CHAPTER V 

 THE YORKSHIRE MEETIiNGS 



Yorkshire as a home of racing — Old Yorkshire meetings — Durham Races — Curious 

 accident — Scarborough Races — Raid on the stands — Yorkshire owners — Mal- 

 ton and Middleham — Supply of horses — South-country platers at Northern 

 meetings — Lord Durham astonished — Doncaster Races — Run by the Corpor- 

 ation — Appearance of course — St. Leger Course — Cup Course — Spring Meeting 

 — Attendances at September Meeting — Doncaster crowd compared with that 

 of Epsom — Cheap transit to course — Too much Butter-scotch — Excursionists 

 — Yorkshire critics — Northern opinion — Doncaster programme — Distance of 

 races — Value of stakes — York Races — Retrospective — "Cross and jostle" — 

 Story of Archer and Snowden — Dates of meetings — August fixture — Its import- 

 ance — Ebor Handicap — Some of its winners — Luncheon to huntsmen — John 

 Osborne chaffed — The jockey gets the best of it — Great Yorkshire Stakes — 

 St. Leger winners beaten therein — Tom Cannon's riding of Ossory — The Gim- 

 crack Stakes — Gimcrack's defeats — Minor Yorkshire meetings — Stockton and 

 its programme — Redcar Races — A capital course — Proposal to alter fixture 

 list — Saltburn-on-the-Sea and Redcar as health resorts — Pontefract — Beverley 

 — Ripon — Catterick Bridge — The real Goodwood of the North. 



YORKSHIRE was always a great home of horse-racing, 

 and I believe that at Black Hambleton, a few miles 

 north-east of Thirsk, and at Kipling Cotes, near Market 

 Weighton, there were races several hundred years ago. 

 Hambleton is situated on moor land, or rather on moor edge, 

 and though there has been no racing there for generations, 

 it is still in great request as a training ground, for it affords 

 the very best of going, even in times of drought. What 

 was once the racecourse at Kipling Cotes is now a sandy 

 lane, which leads from Goodmanham (one mile south-east 

 of Market Weighton) to two or three neighbouring farms, 

 but, curiously enough, the local folk race over it still (or did 

 until very recently) with a Kipling Cotes Stake of £<, — 

 under what rules I never heard. The list of Yorkshire 



119 



