STEEPLECHASING. 609 



Come Away, Drogheda, and Shannon Lass (1902). Of the four riders who can alone 

 claim the same honour, Captain H. Coventry (1865), Mr. F. G. Hobson (1877), and 

 Lord Manners (1882) were amateurs. P. Woodland (1903) is at present the only 

 professional. 



T. Olliver made no less than nineteen appearances, out of which he won three 

 times, was as often second, and got third once. Two amateurs run him hard : 

 " Mr. Thomas " with three wins out of seventeen attempts, including two thirds and 

 a fourth, and Mr. E. P. Wilson with two firsts and a second in his sixteen races. 

 But G. Stevens more than redresses the balance on the professional side, for in his 

 fifteen starts he won the record number of five victories and was once placed third. 

 The only other riders who can claim three wins are A. Nightingall, who tried 

 fourteen times, and Mr. T. Beasley, who had a dozen efforts. Naturally the horses 

 do not make such frequent appearances ; but, among winners, seven starts stand 

 to the credit of Frigate, Why Not, Liberator, Gamecock, and Manifesto, who only 

 twice failed to get into the first three during his career, and if the entry he has 

 made for 1904 be followed by a race, this double winner will hold the record number 

 of eight starts at the advanced age of sixteen. Peter Simple, another who won 

 twice, started six times and was unplaced in four races, as was Regal, who won in 

 1876. Of the seven who can count five starts, only Abd-el-Kader won twice. 



Passing for the moment from professional to what may with truth be called 

 amateur steeplechasing, it is fair to add here that it is just possible we might have 

 had no National Hunt Committee or any National Hunt Steeplechase had it not 

 been for the exertions of Mr. Fothergill Rowlands. That gentleman for a few years 

 followed his profession of medicine ; but he was away hunting as often as possible, 

 and, being a fine horseman, took to riding steeplechases. More than that, he 

 exerted himself to the utmost in trying to revive that form of racing which some 

 people then, as now, averred had enormously declined. In the late fifties it occurred 

 to " Fog " Rowlands, as he was called, that farmers might be induced to breed 

 high-class horses if a steeplechase were established confined to bond-fide hunters, 

 and it was hoped that farmers and hunting men would ride as they did in the 

 twenties and thirties. The plan gradually matured, and in 1859 Mr. Rowlands and 

 his friends were enabled to bring off an experimental race at Market Harborough. 

 The projectors sought the assistance of the different hunts, but two only responded 

 the Vale of White Horse and Old Berkeley, then known as Lord Dacre's. The 

 added money, ,250, was guaranteed by Mr. Rowlands and his supporters, all of 



