428 



A HISTORF OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



out an embryo Derby winner from her stud was her late Majesty Queen Victoria, 

 whose pastures at Hampton Court were even more renowned as the home in their 

 early days of Springfield, and of those famous sisters Memoir and La Fleche. As a 

 matter of fact, during the period just mentioned the best strains were monopolised 

 by the greater men of the Turf almost as much as they were in the days when Sir 

 Charles Bunbury, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Egremont, and the Duke of Grafton won 

 fourteen out of the first thirty-six Derbies. In 1902, though Sceptre, St. Mac/on, and 

 Dundonald were bought as yearlings, all the other winners were bred by their 

 respective owners; the Derby being won by Mr. J. Gubbins with Ard Patrick ; the 

 three .10,000 races by Sir Richard Waldie Griffith, the Duke of Devonshire, and the 



late Col. McCalmont 

 (with Velcs, Cheers, 

 and Rising Glass 

 respectively) ; the 

 Ascot Cup and 

 Alexandra Plate by 

 the Duke of Port- 

 land's William the 

 Third; the National 

 Produce Stakes by 

 Mr. Arthur James's 

 Rabelais. ; the Middle 

 Park Plate by Sir 

 Daniel Cooper's Flot- 

 sam ; the Coventry 



and Champagne Stakes and the Dewhurst Plate with Rock Sand; and in the list of 

 winning owners which was headed by Sir John Blundell Maple in 1901, this gentle- 

 man was only just beaten for second place by the late Colonel H. McCalmont. 



It is not, perhaps, without significance that the occasion on which the most sensible 

 Turf reforms have in late years been suggested has been the annual dinner of the 

 York Race Committee and the brethren of the Ancient Fraternity of York Gimcracks. 

 The very name of the animal from whom the Club is named seems to suggest the 

 wisdom of considering whether we have really learnt the lesson of the days when 

 Gimcrack raced. At the one-hundred^and-thirtieth dinner some suggestions were 

 made by the Rt. Hon. James Lowther, M.P., and by the famous trainer, John 



Mr. ThornhMs "Euclid" (1836) by " Emilius? 



