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adapted to the course, and left to the discretion of the official inspector, 

 and not to rule and measurement. 



We have now a great many more steeplechase meetings in Ireland 

 than we used to have, but most of them are small affairs. Whether 

 that increase has proved beneficial or otherwise I can't well say. But 

 as regards those meetings which have sprung up and are carried on as 

 commercial affairs, I certainly am not in favour of. The principle is so 

 at variance with that on which meetings in my day were promoted, 

 probably I don't understand it sufficiently. Those such as Baldoyle, 

 Leopardstown, and Cork Park, being near to large cities, may do well 

 enough, but to have the "gate money" business extended to the 

 country I think would do a great deal of harm. 



I feel that our farmers and country traders should be afforded the 

 opportunity of seeing a steeplechase as often as possible, and thus keep 

 alive in them the love of the old sport. For that reason assuredly I 

 would not allosv any more courses to be enclosed, but would give 

 people free access same as of yore. 



Our Irish National Steeplechase Committee, like other corporations- 

 who have to frame rules which will be alike effective and popular, have 

 a hard task at times. Sport, however, is the only star they should steer 

 for. To assist a number of people to make money by means of starting a 

 race meeting on limited liabilitjs or other such principle, should not for 

 one moment occupy their consideration, unless it be clearly shown that 

 good results to sport will follow. 



When dealing with Lord Howth's letter already alluded to, I referred 

 to matters which, in my opinion, caused a great deal of the injury 

 which steeplechasing has in late years sustained, notably where I 

 stated that we have not now men in Ireland to support steeplechasing 

 of the same calibre as the old. 



Even when I was a young man, not to speak of for many years pre- 

 viously, we had all over Ireland noblemen and gentry of good meauF,. 

 who not alone bred and reared steeplechase horses, but trained and 

 raced them from their own stables, and rarely were any gent to a public 

 trainer. As well as my memory serves me, Mr. John Hubert Moore, 

 when residing at Jockey Hall on the Curragh, was the first man to 

 whom horses were sent to be trained for cross-country work, and oce 

 of his first patrons was Captain John F. Montgomery, familiarly called 

 " Ptufus." Whether it was that the young men, being less well-off, were 

 less sporting than the old, or that they considered their horses could be 

 done more justice to in a public stable than their own, certain it is that 

 since early in the sixties men have given up by degrees home-training. 

 It is not for me to say which was the best plan, but of this I am 

 positive that we had better sport with better horses under the old 

 system. 



In some of our big crack training stables we have some few good 

 steeplechasers owned by a few good sportsmen ; but, with all due 

 respect to owners, I would submit that, while there is no doubt about 



