210 THE ENGLISH TURF 



ordinary year, and was a beautiful specimen of the St. Simon 

 tribe, which is not as a rule remarkable for beauty, that is, in 

 its colts. He was far less in stature than such as Persimmon 

 or St. Serf, and he showed more quality than the Prince of 

 Wales' great horse. Indeed, he was quite a little model of 

 that peculiar type of thoroughbred, and no horse of modern 

 times carried more condition. That Isinglass and La Fleche 

 would both have beaten him in the Lancashire Plate had the 

 race been run at a stronger pace, I quite believe ; but I have 

 no wish to disparage Raeburn's victory, and as far as can be 

 judged at the moment the little horse looks like making a 

 sire. 



The Autumn Meeting at Manchester occupies the last 

 three days of the racing year at the end of November, and 

 a serious drawback to this fixture lies in the fact that more 

 often than not the light is very bad at New Barns just about 

 then, with the result that on some days it is impossible to 

 see the horses except when they are close to the stands. 

 Manchester too is famous amongst racing resorts for wet 

 weather, and this is usually sampled on at least one day of 

 the autumn fixture. Nevertheless, everyone goes there just 

 the same. There may not be many ladies in the club stand, 

 but the hotels are just as highly tried as they are in the 

 summer, and as it is the last meeting of the year, fields of 

 enormous proportions go to the post for nearly every race. 

 The programme is not quite so suggestive of class as at the 

 earlier meetings, but it includes many nice prizes, handicaps 

 and nurseries of good value being mixed up with selling 

 plates — which take a good deal of winning — the whole 

 crowned with the Manchester November Handicap of about 

 i^i,500, which is run on the Cup Course of a mile and six 

 furlongs, and always attracts a good field from the best stay- 

 ing handicap horses in training. In this race some wonderful 

 performances have been recorded. To mention a few of 

 them : Belphoebe, as a four-year-old, won for the Duke of 

 Devonshire (then Lord Hartington) with 9 st. 5 lbs. in the 

 saddle ; Corrie Roy, a few years later, won under 9 st. 10 lbs., 

 and her wonderful performance was beaten by that of 

 Carlton, who was successful in a field of twenty with the 



