OTHER COUNTRY MEETINGS 159 



mile round. It is tlierefore necessary for the Cup horses to 

 start nearly two furlongs below the stands, which they have 

 to pass twice before the finish. With two and a quarter 

 miles to run, they pass the winning-post three times, thus 

 affording a spectacle which is seen in no other existing race. 



It naturally follows that a great deal of the race is on the 

 turn, and in consequence we often find that horses who run 

 well in, or even win the Chester Cup, have really no great 

 claims to stamina, as is discovered when they come to per- 

 form on such a straight-away course as the Caesarewitch, for 

 instance. At the same time several great horses have won 

 the Chester Cup, and those who have won the race as a rule 

 make a bold show if they run another year. Dare Devil, 

 Pageant, and Dalby each won two years in succession, and 

 Leamington twice, but not in following years. In the middle 

 of the century the fields were generally so large that they 

 placed the horses in two rows at the start, the course not 

 being wide enough to take them all in. When Joe Miller 

 won in 1852 there were no fewer than forty-three starters, 

 and thirty has been exceeded some half-dozen times. Now- 

 adays the field is of reasonable proportions, with a strong 

 tendency to increase since the value of the stake was raised. 

 Besides the Cup there are other stakes at Chester well worth 

 winning, notably the Dee Stakes of a mile and a half for 

 three-year-olds, the Mostyn and Ormonde Plates for two- 

 year-olds, and the Great Cheshire Handicap of a mile and a 

 quarter, worth ;i^ 1,000, and a distinct feature of the last day's 

 card. Nearly all the minor handicaps are worth winning too, 

 and besides the Cup long-distance racing is encouraged with 

 the May Plate, weight-for-age, of one mile and five furlongs, 

 and worth about ^^300. This race is also a feature of the 

 last day's card, and a few years ago that good horse Clorane 

 won it easily, after having been successful in the Great 

 Cheshire Handicap an hour before. 



Lincoln has now three meetings during the season, one 

 of three days in the spring, which, in nineteen years out of 

 twenty, unless Easter is abnormally early, is the first meeting 

 of the racing year ; one of two days in June, dating from 

 1900; and one of two days in the late autumn, which is 



