STEEPLECHASING. 



615 



forty lengths ahead of sEsop, and his last win was the Great Sefton Steeplechase, 

 under ijst. jib., from nine opponents. He retired after winning nineteen out of 

 thirty-five races, and certainly stands at the top of the steeplechasing -class with 

 Manifesto, Come Away, Congress, Seaman, The Colonel, Usna, and L'Africain. 

 He passed his last days at Lower Forty Farm, Wembley, and, by the orders of 

 his owner, Mr. Charles G. Duff, his body was preserved by Rowland Ward. Two 

 horses entered in the Grand National of 1903 were almost as famous as Cloister. 

 They were Mr. J. G. Bulteel's Manifesto and His Majesty the King's Ambush II. 

 Manifesto, carrying 1 2st. 3lb. (or a stone more than the winner), was fifteen years 

 old, and seemed to carry his years as easily as his weight. He had a grand 

 race home for third 

 place with Kirkland, 

 beating him by a head. 

 Ambush II. came down 

 at the last fence, but 

 his name will never 

 be forgotten, for after 

 Manifesto 's second vic- 

 tory, he put a Grand 

 National to the King's 

 credit in the same year 

 as the Royal colours 

 were first past the 

 post in the Derby. 

 Ambush II. was foalecl in 1894, by Ben Battle, the grandsire of Manifesto, out of 

 Miss Plant by Umpire. He did not take kindly to learning jumping, and was 

 first owned in part by Mr. Lushington and in part by Mr. William Ashe, who 

 bred him in Kildare. But he was bought by the King (then Prince erf Wales) 

 for ^500, and was trained at Eyrefield Lodge, Major Eustace Loder's place on 

 the edge of the Curragh, carrying silk for the first time in 1898 at the Meath 

 Hunt Races. Anthony rode him well in nearly all his races. 



Ireland has certainly done her duty in horsebreeding, and the land which 

 produced Sir Hercules, Birdcatcher, The Baron, Harkaiuay, and so many others 

 of the right stamp, may well do even more in the future than she has done in 

 the past ; for it Pretty Polly goes on as she gave promise when these lines were 



" Manifesto." 



