" ' SCEPTRE ' WINS ! " 



683 



pleasant to look back upon. The starter must have a high and a much longer 

 platform, parallel for thirty yards with the course. He should be able to give the 

 signal without any movement on his part being noticeable at all, at any place on that 

 platform. He should be connected by electric wire with an advance flag, and by 

 telephone with the stewards or the judge's box. The horses should enter the rails 

 thirty or forty yards before the starting-post, and walk up to it under the direction of 

 the starter, who could send them off whenever he pleased, as soon as he saw them 

 well in line, before they got close up to the gate. Unless this is done which is 

 improbable the starting-gate must disappear. 



Not the least of the many losses which Newmarket has had to bear of late 

 was that involved by 

 the death of Sir J. 

 Blundell Maple, a few 

 weeks after he had been 

 elected to the Jockey 

 Club. He first raced 

 in 1 88 1 as "Mr. Child- 

 wick," with Humphreys 

 at Lambourne, who pre- 

 pared one really good 

 horse for him in Sara- 

 band. In 1887, after 

 purchasing the place, he 

 installed Percy Peck as 

 his trainer at Falmouth 



House, the handsome villa poor Fred Archer used for so short a time. The 

 lavish way he raced may be gathered from the fact that in 1903, his last season, 

 W. Waugh, then his private trainer at Newmarket, had forty-five animals ready, 

 and twenty-six of them won fifty-one races worth _ 13,810 ios., the best being 

 Nabot, Lord Bobs, Divorce Court, Queens Holiday, Kitty wick, Vidame, Childwickbury, 

 Girton Girl, Simony, and Neiosboy, one of the fastest two-year-olds of the season. 

 By 1890 the "white and gold stripes, claret cap" were registered in the name 

 of Mr. Blundell Maple, and he transferred his nont de guerre of "Childwick" to 

 Sir Tatton Sykes's yearling, which he purchased at what was then the record 

 price of 6,000 guineas. After a fine career on the Turf and at the stud, Childunck 



" Chelandry" (1894) by " Goldfinch? 



