THE YORKSHIRE MEETINGS 123 



many thoroughbreds as ever they did, but a majority of 

 them are platers, or at the best handicap horses, and it is 

 many a long year since a classic victory was vi^on by a 

 Yorkshire -trained horse, Middleham shows signs of even 

 greater decay, for there the horses have declined in number 

 as well as in quality, though in 1898 the veteran trainer- 

 jockey, John Osborne, astonished the racing world by 

 winning for Mr, Vyner the Great Northern Handicap at 

 York, the Manchester Cup, and the Northumberland Plate 

 with the four-year-old King Crow, an exceptional stayer 

 of the old-fashioned stamp, who went some way towards 

 reviving the glories of Middleham Moor. Hambleton is 

 also less in requisition as a training ground than formerly, 

 but a good many horses do their work on Beverley West- 

 wood, and, what with Malton, Middleham, Hambleton, 

 Beverley, Pontefract, and Mr. Vyner's training stable near 

 Ripon, plenty of runners are always forthcoming at the 

 smaller Yorkshire meetings where the Southern stables are 

 little in evidence. A long string of platers is trained by 

 Armstrong at Penrith, in Cumberland, and these divide their 

 attention between the Yorkshire meetings and the fixtures 

 held in the Northern Midlands, Armstrong has generally 

 something to run at the Scotch meetings too, and Malton 

 and Yorkshire generally do a great deal towards furnishing 

 the fields "over the border," while at such places as Gos- 

 forth Park and Carlisle Yorkshire- and Cumberland-trained 

 horses are naturally much in evidence. A recognised 

 feature in connection with the Yorkshire stables is that 

 when any of them do send a horse to an important Southern 

 fixture they seldom return emptyhanded, and in this con- 

 nection mention may be made of the many successes scored 

 by Bates of Middleham at Ascot, and more especially in 

 the Ascot Stakes. William PAnson, of Malton, won the 

 Lewes Handicap in following years with Newcourt and 

 Street Singer ; and when a Malton horse runs in a selling 

 plate at Newmarket he is generally worth following. Many 

 of the Newmarket and Southern trainers are apt to under- 

 rate the form up North, and over and over again quite 

 long teams from a South-country stable have invaded some 



