MODERN ENCLOSED COURSES 207 



week is the great annual holiday of Cottonopolis, and as 

 the weather is generally fine, the attendances are enormous, 

 more particularly on Friday, when the Manchester Cup is 

 the chief event on the card. The arrangement of the pro- 

 gramme for the four days has occasionally been changed, 

 but of late the Summer Breeders' Foal Plate has been the 

 big event of the first day, while on the second day, though 

 no particular race has stood out, there have been four prizes 

 averaging a " monkey " apiece in value, viz. the De Trafford 

 Handicap of a mile and a quarter, the Beaufort Handicap 

 of five furlongs, the John o' Gaunt Plate for two-year-olds, 

 and the Derby Plate, a mile weight-for-age race for three- 

 year-olds and upwards. On Friday, besides the Manchester 

 Cup, there is the City Plate for two-year-olds and the Wilton 

 Welter Handicap, and on Saturday the Salford Borough 

 Handicap of iJ'ijOOO and the Whitsuntide Plate of the same 

 value for two-year-olds. Some years ago, before the altera- 

 tion of Rule 45, this Whitsuntide Plate used to be worth 

 four or five times as much as it now is, and in 1888 Donovan 

 sustained one of his few defeats in it, being beaten by Chitta- 

 bob, who had, however, the best of the weights. The race 

 has been won by Briar-root, who scored in the One Thousand 

 Guineas a year later, and also by the beautiful Signorina, 

 who always ran well on the Manchester Course. Indeed, 

 the Whitsuntide Plate has a smart bead-roll of winners, 

 and for a few years, when the prize was so large, it to a 

 certain extent discounted the two-year-old racing at Ascot, 

 there being no two-year-old race at the Royal meeting of 

 half the value. 



The Manchester Cup is undoubtedly the most popular race 

 of the Whitsuntide Meeting. It is of ;^2,ooo value, and is 

 run on a course of a mile and six furlongs, the start taking 

 place some few hundred yards below the stand. The race 

 dates from 1834, and the greatest performance ever achieved 

 in it was that of Isonomy, who beat a field of twenty in 

 1880 with 9 St. 12 lbs. in the saddle. This stands out as one 

 of the best handicap efforts of all time, and only a fortnight 

 later Mr. Gretton's great horse won the Ascot Cup for the 

 second year in succession. Another great performance, 



