FROM HOWL FOR 'RECIPROCITY TO PliESEKT DAY 225 



stakes, but there were some very ugly symptoms as 

 regarded the EngUsh horses and their prospects for the 

 future. 



It made the business worse rather than better to 

 point out that very many of the ' foreigners ' belonged 

 to English owners, and therefore could not be said to 

 take English money out of the country ; for tliese 

 ' foreigners ' were by no means the pick of the 

 bunch, and it looked, therefore, as if — whilst the best 

 'foreigners' would be winning our most important 

 and valuable races — the inferior would be purchased 

 by native Englishmen to pick up a handicap now and 

 then. 



Anyhow this was the picture which presented itself 

 to the British hon at the end of the season 1876. Not 

 only had the Derby, the Oaks, and the One Thousand 

 (to say nothing of the Grand Prix de Paris) been 

 won — and the Doncaster St. Leger very nearly — by 

 ' foreigners,' but in the One Thousand the first three 

 (Camelia, Allumette, and La Seine), in the Oaks the 

 first two (Cameha and Enguerrande, who ran a dead 

 heat), in the Eoyal Stakes at Newmarket the first two 

 (Allumette and Camembert, beating Farnese), in the 

 Newmarket Oaks the first three (Lina, Augusta, and 

 Basquine), were all foreigners, as if an English compe- 

 titor or competitress could not get so much as a ' look 

 in.' Then among the two-year-olds there was every in- 

 dication of trouble in store for the Britisher. Just a 

 glimpse of the cloven hoof was seen when Saint-Chris- 

 to])he (whose time, however, was to be next year) 

 came out at the Epsom Summer Meeting and obtained 

 a place (third) for the Two-year-old Plate, and then ran 

 second to Eob Eoy for tlie New Stakes at Ascot ; more 

 had been seen when Sugarloaf got second twice (to 



