THE FIRST STEEPLECHASE 85 



deliver at Boulogne. When the horses were landed it was 

 discovered for the first time that Jem was missing, that 

 no one had seen him on board, and that not even the lip- 

 strings of the horses were undone. A letter was at once 

 despatched to England to the owner, but from the day 

 Hill had departed with his charges nothing had been seen 

 or heard of him. No clue was found until the very steamer 

 in which he was to have sailed came back from France, 

 when her paddle-wheels actually turned up the poor jock 

 out of the mud close to the London Bridge quay. Going 

 on board in the dark, he had slipped between the two 

 steamers moored together, and had been drowned, or 

 smothered in the slime. 



On Monday, 29th February 1836 (leap year), the first 

 Liverpool steeplechase was run near Aintree, twice round 

 a two-mile course, and a commentator says : " A strong 

 recommendation to it was that nearly the whole of the 

 performance could be seen from the grand stand." The 

 conditions were " a sweepstakes of 10 sovereigns each, 

 with 80 added, for horses of all denominations; 12 st. 

 each ; gentlemen riders. The winner to be sold for 

 200 sovereigns if demanded." Captain Beecher (whose 

 name is commemorated in Beecher's Brook) won on a horse 

 called The Duke. And I think it was three years later 

 that Johnny Broome, the famous prize-fighter, who was 

 a daring and clever horseman, rode his own horse Eagle 

 for the same race. 



In the autumn of 1866, the Grand National Hunt 

 Committee having been formed, its rules were recognised 

 and enforced, to the infinite advantage of steeplechasing ; 

 and from this date WeatJierbys Steeplechase Calendar, 

 the first volume of which bears date i?>66-y, has been 

 issued. 



Earlier than this, the first Grand National Hunt Steeple- 

 chase had been run. The date of the first contest was 

 i860, the place Market Harborough, and Mr Burton 

 beat thirty opponents on Mr B. J. Angell's Bridegroom. 

 "The Market Harborough course," a member of the 

 Grand National Committee who has always been an 

 advocate of big jumps confesses, " was really an awful 



