1 3 2 Saddle and Sirloin. 



a good Newcastle front against " the proud invader," 

 browses west beyond Belsay. Nunnykirk is " some 

 miles over yonder," and so is Belsay Castle, where the 

 hatchment is just up for " the old baronet, with blue 

 bandages on his fore-legs" (as a " memoir man," 

 writing about him and Gamester observed), who died 

 when he was upwards of 88, and won his maiden St. 

 Leger at 8o. His racing-tree had its tap-root in 

 Twinkle by Orville, and it bore a crop of paying fruit 

 in Cast Steel, Vanguard, Vindex, Gamester, Vanity, 

 Gadabout, Hunca Munca, Hepatica, Prelude, and 

 Galanthus. He was very fond of them, and very 

 fidgety about them, and on one occasion he took the 

 whim, and wrote his trainer specially, to counter-order 

 Vanguard for Newcastle; but the letter miscarried, 

 and the horse won. Still, he would always have pre- 

 ferred an afternoon with The Antiquary or the Iliad 

 to a racing one, and he was still translating the latter 

 when he died. 



After Morpeth, the scene shifts to the other side 

 of the line, and the portly form of Mr. Angus, of 

 Whitfield, standing in a field of fog among his Border 

 Leicester lambs, is to us quite a herald of the district. 

 Beyond the fine coursing fields of Bothal,* where Jane 

 Anne first won, and which the " Els" know well, is 

 Woodhorn, whence Mr. Jacob Wilson brought his gay, 

 aged bull, Duke of Tyne, by " Dick," to win the first 



* The Bothal meeting is held over sixteen thousand acres of the Duke 

 of Portland's property, near Morpeth. A large portion is permanent 

 grass land in ridge and furrow. The fields are not generally above 

 fifteen acres ; but many hedges are being removed at the Club's ex- 

 pense. Hares are so plentiful that they recently ran off a 134-dog-and- 

 bitch puppy stakes, and a 32-dog all-aged stake in five days, and yet 

 only beat one- third of the ground. The present Club is a renewal of 

 that which flourished twenty years ago, and the second founder and 

 president is the Hon. Mr. Ellis, nephew to the Duke of Portland. In 

 addition to the Spring and Autumn (open) Meetings, there are fort- 

 nightly ones, which are well attended. There is no truer type of a 

 pleasant club to promote good sport and good feeling in a county. 



