130 CANADIAlSr TURF RECOLLECTIONS 



No man but a latter day crank can deny that there were 

 some rattling good performers then. Memory serves up 

 such good ones as Augusta, Allendale, Brown Dick, Mont- 

 calm, Verge, Julia Adams, Newcastle Maid, Twilight, 

 Jack the Barber, Kenneth, Thunder, Harper, Tommy 

 Wonder, Clarion, Blanche, Marksman, Don Juan, Wil- 

 liam Ashley, Nannie Craddock, Zig Zag, and a little later 

 on Sir Archibald, King Tom, Lord Byron, Vespucius, 

 Judge Durell, Vandal, War Cry, Carleton, Edenton, The 

 Moor, Viley, Kelso, Jim Connor, Bonny Braes, Jack 

 Bell, Jack on the Green, Milesian, Duffy and lots more 

 that I can't recall to mind just at the moment, and those 

 were the days when long distance racing was more the 

 rule than the exception, and a meeting without mile heats 

 was booked a dull affair, and many a gallant three-mile 

 heat race in those days proved the stubborn gameness of 

 the performers. 



How many horses do you suppose, owned in Canada 

 to-day could have stayed the trip with Verge, Julia 

 Adams, Jack the Barber and William Ashley in their 

 great three-mile heat race at Whitby, in June, 1862 1 The 

 first heat was won by the mare in 5.411/2. The second and 

 third by Verge in 5.34 and 5.381^, and weight for age was 

 the impost. The day before on the same track, Julia 

 Adams won a two-mile heat race in 3.38 and 3.41 ; Verge 

 being beaten a length in the final heat and a scant neck in 

 the second. The year after, also at the county town of 

 Ontario, Thunder, with 122 pounds up, won a two-mile 

 heat race in 3.421/^ and 3.3814, Harper being lapped on 

 him in both heats. Three and four thousand people used 

 to turn out in those days, and though bookmakers were a 

 betting medium unknown, yet a goodly quantity of dollars 

 used to be wagered, and lots of prominent men of the 

 community were not ashamed to be seen backing their 

 fancy. 



AN ANCIENT QUEEN ^S PLATE. 



I have heard it claimed a hundred times that no 

 Queen's Plate was ever run in Canada before 1860, but 

 the following, published some time ago by the Oobourg 



