168 TUE HOKSE. 



books, MS. documents and pictures, without which this work 

 would have fallen, indeed, far short of the present short-comings 

 of the author. 



The races of Wagner and Gray Eagle, taken from the pages 

 of the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, are 

 by the pen — perhaps, are the chef d'ceuvre of the pen — of my 

 esteemed friend William T. Porter. I well remember, at the 

 time, when this brilliant and graphic narrative and picture of 

 events made its api^earance, the general admiration with which 

 it was hailed. By the editor of that well known and world-re- 

 nowned journal, " Bell's Life in London," it was immediately 

 pronounced tlie perfection of turf-writing, combining the abso- 

 lute of strong horse-language and imagery, with tlie entire ab- 

 sence of slang. If, critically speaking, I possess any judgment 

 in regard to style and the artificial in composition, I should pro- 

 nounce the Wagner and Gray Eagle contest, to be the best 

 description of a race ever penned in any country, or in any 

 language. It seems to me to be ne ])lus ultra. 



The Fashion and Boston match on the Union course, from 

 the columns of the Spirit of the Times, is from the same hand 

 also ; and the same clear narrative, quick observation and ac- 

 curate decision are discernible in every line. 



This great event, and grand struggle — in which the Northern 

 stables renewed the laurels, which they had won in the conquest 

 of the Southern champion Sir Henry by the Great Eclipse ; and 

 doubly renewed them, by outdoing that hitherto unequalled 

 feat — brings me almost to the close of the period, which I have 

 determined on as the palmy days of American racing ; brings 

 me completely to the decadence and downtiill of the turf in the 

 Northern States. 



For what reasons it fell, it would not be easy to state. Per- 

 haps, this would not be, for some reasons, the place in which to 

 state it, if it were so. 



It is sufficient that, at the same moment, or nearly so, all the 

 most liberal and energetic patrons of the turf withdi-ew from it 

 their support, closed their stables, disposed of their studs, and 

 ceased, vastly to the loss of the agricultural community, and of 

 the country at large, to breed, to keep, or to import blood stock. 



At the same time an unthinking, senseless, declamatory 

 s]>irit of fa:;aticism, den<Mincing the breeding of blood stock and 



