MODERN ENCLOSED COURSES 177 



Hshed a couple of i^io.ooo stakes at Newmarket, the 

 conditions of which are almost identical with those of the 

 Eclipse Stakes. Whether these mammoth prizes are for 

 the general good, or, to put it in the hackneyed phrase, 

 are likely to improve the breed of racehorses, is a much- 

 debated question, and one about which a good deal may 

 be said either way. If one refers to the record of races 

 past it will be found that in five years out of six the 

 Eclipse and every similar stake has been won by a good 

 horse, very often indeed by the best in training at the 

 moment, and more frequently by the best of the year ; 

 but, as a set-off, we have the fact that when a really high- 

 class four-year-old has been entered for the Eclipse Stakes, 

 or for the Princess of Wales' Stakes at Newmarket, he is 

 not as a rule trained for the Ascot Cup ; and if it happens 

 — and this is nearly always the case with good horses 

 nowadays — that he is taken out of training at the end of 

 his third season, he goes to the stud without having shown 

 in public that he could stay a Cup Course. Among the 

 eleven Eclipse Stakes winners are two glorious exceptions 

 to this, viz. Isinglass and Persimmon, each of whom won 

 the Ascot Gold Cup and the Sandown Eclipse Stakes as 

 well. Isinglass won the Eclipse Stakes as a four-year-old 

 and the Ascot Cup a year later ; but Persimmon supple- 

 mented his Ascot triumph by winning at Sandown only five 

 weeks later ; and success in two such dissimilar races within 

 so short a space of time stamps the Prince of Wales' horse 

 as quite one of the best of modern thoroughbreds. 



The real drawback to the Eclipse and similar stakes is that 

 the distances run are not long enough to try the best quali- 

 ties of a racehorse. I cannot assert that any of these prizes 

 have been won by a mere sprinter, but most certainly some 

 of them have fallen to horses who could not travel an inch 

 further than a mile and a quarter, and I think it should 

 not be possible for any such great prize or prizes to be 

 won by a non-stayer. By a non-stayer, in this connection, 

 I mean a horse that could not stay at least a mile and six 

 furlongs — the length of the St. Leger Course. 



One tendency of these valuable races that is by no means 



N 



