120 THE ENGLISH TURF 



meetings which have ceased to exist would fill a page of this 

 book. Of them Northallerton, Richmond, Hedon (near 

 Hull), Scarborough, and Malton have disappeared from the 

 Calendar within the last twenty years, and no new fixtures 

 have been found to take their places. At the present time 

 the Yorkshire meetings are fourteen in number, viz. Don- 

 caster (two), York (two), Pontefract (three), Catterick, Ripon, 

 Thirsk (two), Redcar (two), and Beverley, the fixtures at 

 York and Doncaster being much the most important. The 

 Redcar Summer Meeting has a somewhat ambitious pro- 

 gramme, which is generally productive of good sport, and 

 Stockton is practically a Yorkshire meeting, though the 

 town of Stockton-on-Tees is really in the neighbouring 

 county of Durham. The course, however, lies on the 

 southern side of the river, and if the meeting has its head- 

 quarters in Durham, Yorkshire can claim the course on the 

 Mandale Bottoms. Doncaster is so handy for Newmarket, 

 since the Great Eastern Railway extended their line to the 

 town, that it draws equally upon Northern- and Southern- 

 trained horses, even at its Spring Meeting. The September 

 gathering ranks third to Ascot and Epsom only, and horses 

 come from all parts of the kingdom, a majority of the prizes 

 now going to the South. York Spring Meeting is more 

 local, but there is always a contingent from Newmarket, 

 which is greatly increased at the summer fixture. In the 

 same fashion Redcar is local as regards its spring fixture, 

 but more cosmopolitan at the August Meeting. Stockton 

 draws pretty freely on the Southern stables, but Catterick, 

 Thirsk, Beverley, and Ripon are all local fixtures, nine- 

 tenths of the horses who run at those places being 

 trained in Yorkshire and other Northern counties. Ponte- 

 fract, on the other hand, is fairly well supported by 

 Newmarket, though even here Northern horses are in the 

 ascendant ; but it must be remembered that Pontefract 

 has a go-ahead Corporation with plenty of life in it, and 

 that the town lies a long way south of Ripon, Thirsk, 

 and Redcar. With the exception of Stockton, the county 

 of Durham has no meeting whatever. Durham itself was 

 the last place in the county at which racing under Jockey 



