all our horses, the fields at headquarters, as well as elsewhere, are 

 ridiculously small, while meetings held all over the country for the 

 benefit of outside interest in such superabundance as they are is posi- 

 tively a prostitution of the noble sport of racing— I state so advisedly. 



Jockeys' Riding.— Not alone is the system of racing changed from 

 what it was, but the riding is changed too. Long ago jockeys, sitting 

 firm in the saddle, rode with their hands and knees, driving their horses- 

 home without much aid of whip or spur. Now we see theaa coming 

 in with loose rein, wabbling all over their horses, which they flog 

 and spur unmercifully, and at times when there is no chance of winning. 

 Many a race has been lost by undue punishment, while thousands of 

 horses have been ruined by it ; and if some of our present jockeys were 

 taught that a prick of the spur will make nearly every thoroughbred 

 horse give his running quite as well as excoriation of it, it would 

 be a sound lesson. 



Two-Year-Olds.— Not long ago I showed a well-known trainer, who 

 also breeds extensively, what I wrote at p. 173 about working two-year- 

 olds, and having the whole system changed as regards racing our 

 youngsters. After having read it all over twice he took off his spec- 

 tacles, and moodily said to me, " Yes, yes, it is all true, but if such a^ 

 system was adopted all the breeders in England would be ruined.' 

 "Why?" asked I. "Because," said he, "horses would then last until 

 they died of old age, and we breeders woukl not have to provide one 

 quarter of the young ones we do now." I dont think if he talked for 

 an hour he could have given more commendation to my remarks. 



The Duchess of Montrose— an Oversight.— When at Newmarket 

 last Whitsuntide I discovered a mistake, which, although plain enough 

 to be seen, was never observed before, at least so the clergyman of St. 

 Agnes' Church told me when I drew his attention to it. The name of 

 the Duchess of Montrose's second husband, Mr. William Stirling 

 Crawfurd, is spelt wrong on the tomb her Grace erected to his memory 

 in the little churchyard on the Bury Road. There itisiCrawford- 

 How it was that the Duchess, with that quickness of perception which 

 was peculiarly her own, could have failed to have discovered the mistake 

 upon any of many scores of times she visited the tomb of the man she- 

 loved so devotedly was a problem the vicar, at all events, could not 

 solve. Had she discovered it what would the poor sculptor have come 

 in for? The mistake will, however, I daresay, be now corrected, for the 

 same man, I was told, is erecting a tomb of similar design over the 

 remains of her Grace, which lie alongside those of Mr. Crawfurd. 



MoRNY Cannon's Doncaster. — Great as were Archer's achieve- 

 ments I doubt if he or any other jockey ever did better at one meeting 

 than did Mornington Cannon at the Doncaster Autumn Meeting 

 of 1894, when that jockey's wins were as follows : — First day : — 

 Stand Plate (9), Rowallan, 100 to 8 against ; Champagne Stakes (5), 

 Solero, 10 to 1 against ; Great Yorkshire Handicap (16), Bushey Park 



