CHAPTER VI 

 OTHER COUNTRY MEETINGS 



Hybrid meetings — Bath — Former importance — Rivalry with York — Brighton 

 Races — The course — Lewes — The Southdown Chib — Harpenden — Sahsbury 

 — The Bibury Club — Northampton — Worcester — Yarmouth — Old-time circuits 

 — Present-day round of racing — Chester Races — The Chester Cup — Its popu- 

 larity — The queer course — Something about the programme — Lincoln Races 

 — The Lincolnshire Handicap — Big attendance — Victory of Clorane — The 

 Brocklesby — Liverpool — The Grand National crowd — Concerning the Grand 

 National Course — Its peculiarities — Exceptional fencing — Cloister's perform- 

 ance — Death of The Lamb — Cloister and Manifesto compared — Other recent 

 winners — Manifesto and Ambush II. — Liverpool Spring Meeting — The Sum- 

 mer fixture — The Autumn Cup — Carlisle — Croxton Park — Newton — Warwick. 



SO much confined to the parks or enclosures is the racing 

 of the present day, that beyond Newmarket, Epsom^ 

 Ascot, Goodwood, Doncaster, and York, and the smaller 

 Yorkshire meetings, a majority of the old gatherings have 

 disappeared, and as a matter of fact some of those which 

 remain have adopted the style of the modern racing com- 

 pany, with rebuilt stands for the general public, a club 

 enclosure for the more select general public, and a shilling 

 a head at the gate for those who affect the outside portion 

 of the course. Hybrid meetings we may term these, and 

 under that heading we may include Chester, Lincoln, and 

 Liverpool. There still remain such open meetings as Bath, 

 Brighton, Harpenden, Huntingdon, Lewes, Salisbury, North- 

 ampton, Worcester, and Yarmouth ; but with the exceptions 

 of Lewes and Salisbury (now that it has become the head- 

 quarters of the Bibury Club) none of them are of much 

 account, and notably Bath and Brighton have both seen 

 better days, though the reasons for their decline are vastly 

 different. Bath was once an important fixture, and its 

 Biennial for three-year-olds and the Somersetshire Stakes 



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