3.52 HOESE-RACING IN FRANCE 



France, at two years of age, before the first of August. 

 It was perhaps a concession to the views of the Ad- 

 ministration, which in the clays of ' daggers drawn ' 

 used to have its races chiefly, if not entirely, in the 

 autumn, leaving the spring to the Societe, and which 

 has quite lately endeavoured to stop two-year-old 

 racing altogether. Now in the first set of rules pub- 

 lished by the Societe (about 1839) there is no restric- 

 tion whatever placed upon two-year-old racing. On 

 the contrary, there was a two-year-old stakes specially 

 established at Chantilly Spring Meeting (May) in 1838, 

 and (with other two-year- old races, such as the Prix 

 du Premier Pas and the Prix de Chantilly, run in May) 

 it was continued up to the very year 1866, when it was 

 won by La Piochelle (who by the way never did any- 

 thing else, though she ran often); it had been won, more- 

 over, by the famous Poetess (dam of Monarque). The 

 Prix du Premier Pas had been won by the celebrated Lan- 

 terne (who in the autumn of the same year, 1843, also 

 won the Omnium ' for all ages ') ; and in 1850 and 1851 

 the Prix de Chantilly had been won by Madame Latache 

 de Fay's Firstborn (winner of the Poule d'Essai) and 

 Trust (winner of the Prix du Cadran, at four years of 

 af^'e, in 1853), much the same feats having been per- 

 formed at two years of age by other horses, both male 

 and female, that afterwards did well. So that it seems 

 quite reasonable to set down the Societe's new rule 

 (new in 1867) to their desire ' to oblige ' rather than to 

 a conviction (forced upon them by experience) of the 

 injurious effects produced by two-year-old racing (if not 

 carried to excess) as early in the season as May. 



And now, the vicissitudes of Chantilly may well come 

 in for a few words of comment and reminder. There 

 is no need to go back to the Montmorcncys, from whom 



