6oo 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



second in the same year for the Leamington Grand Annual on Bourton, the winner, 

 three years later, of the Grand National. About 1852 Mr. Vevers (who, in 1846, 

 when sixty-four years old, rode his own horse Little Tommy in the Paris steeple- 

 chase) retired from the sport which he had taken up with all the ardour of the 

 younger school. Then it was that George Stevens returned to Cheltenham, his 

 native place. In the course of his career he achieved the unequalled distinction 

 of winning the Grand National five times, and on two occasions equalled Tom 

 Olliver's feat of carrying off the great race two years in succession. His first 

 victory, as mentioned above, was on Freetrader in 1856. In 1863 and 1864 

 he won on Lord Coventry's Emblem and Emblematic respectively, and in 1869 



and 1870 he steered 

 The Colonel to victory, 

 having in course of a 

 twenty-two years' ex- 

 perience of steeplechas- 

 ing won seventy-six 

 races in all, or on an 



average 

 than 



rather 

 three a 



more 



year. 



Mr. E. Wood and " Droeheda? 



Although Stevens had 

 ridden over all kinds of 

 courses without coming 

 to serious injury he 

 always made a practice 

 of lying well away from 



the other competitors he met his death on June 8, 1871, while riding quietly 

 home from Cheltenham to Emblem Cottage on Cleeve Hill. 



The National of 1856 need only be referred to shortly for the purpose of 

 mentioning that Mr. Capel's Little Charlie, the winner, was ridden by William 

 Archer, father of Charles and Fred Archer. He was born at Cheltenham on the 

 ist of January, 1826, where his father kept livery stables, and it is said that he rode 

 a pony in a hurdle-race near Cheltenham when he was no more than nine years 

 old. Running away from home, Archer first picked up a precarious living by- 

 riding on the flat in the Midlands. His next move was to George Taylor, the late 

 Alec Taylor's father, under whom he made a great advance. Thence he migrated 



