LINES OF BLOOD 299 



under the welter weight of 1 2 st. 7 lbs., or 8 lbs. more than 

 was carried by Cortolvin and Why Not, which pair were the 

 next highest weighted winners of the race until Manifesto 

 equalled Cloister's record in 1899. Cloister, too, won the 

 Sefton Steeplechase at Liverpool with 1 3 st. 3 lbs, in the 

 saddle, and both these feats were accomplished without any 

 apparent effort. If ever there was a hard horse it was 

 Cloister, who won all sorts of races, mostly under heavy 

 weights, and was at his best when ten and eleven years old. 

 It is the fact that some of the best-known Hermit colts 

 liked a mile or a mile and a quarter better than a longer 

 distance ; but the family are by no means invariably non- 

 stayers, and besides Tristan and Timothy, both Ascot Cup 

 winners, there are Windsor, who won the Chester Cup and 

 was the dam of Windgall and Retreat, who won the Don- 

 caster Cup and has sired Father OFlynn and that good 

 mare Alice. 



Many Hermit mares have bred stayers, notably Peni- 

 tent, who threw Ravensbury to Isonomy, and Moorhen, 

 who bred Gallinule to Galopin ; but now that it has been 

 proved in the second and third generations it is evident that 

 much of the blood is not altogether stout, and at the present 

 moment many breeders are fighting somewhat shy of it. 

 My own opinion is that it really takes time to mature horses 

 of Hermit descent, and that many who are not genuine 

 stayers at three and four years old can travel much further 

 afterwards if they are kept in training. Under any circum- 

 stances it is ridiculous to condemn any blood as short of 

 stamina which can give us Grand National winners and the 

 best hurdle-racers of the day, and it is incontrovertible that 

 the grandchildren of Hermit win races innumerable across 

 country and over the sticks. When reading the return of 

 a day's racing under National Hunt Rules at one of the 

 enclosures, I noticed that five of the six winners were by 

 sons of Hermit, viz. two by Ascetic, two by Friar's Balsam, 

 and one by Hazlehatch, and the names of these and other 

 Hermit stallions are constantly cropping up in connection 

 with sport under N.H. Rules. 



The family of Hampton is also in direct sire line from the 



