4 THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE TURF. 



place two years afterwards confers a distinct value on 

 a horse, which neither its birth nor its ' form ' can do, 



'What is the use of purchasing su3h an aniraal ?' has 

 been said ; ' it is not entered in any of the classic races. 

 I should not be able to run it either for the Derb}' or 

 St. Leger.' 



It is difficult now to find persons who were at 

 Epsom sixty 3'ears since. When found — there cannot 

 be very many of them living — they give solemn assur- 

 ance that 'it was always so,' that tlicre were always 

 similar vast crowds of spectators, and the same irre- 

 pressible excitement as ' they ' came round the corner. 

 ' I saw Priam win, sir,' said an old stableman to the 

 writer; 'there uas a great big crowd, and it was a 

 most exciting affair. The people seemed to be all 

 raving mad as the field was a-coming in, they shouted 

 so terrible hard ; there were thousands upon thousands 

 on the Downs, and scores of pigeons Avent up in the 

 air half a minute after the race.' 



Such statements must, however, be taken with due 

 allowance for exaggeration as well as decay of memory. 

 In the year 1830, when Priam won, there would not prob- 

 ably be tens present on the Downs at Epsom for the hun- 

 dreds of to-day. No means of transporting thither such 

 crowds as now witness the race could, in the days of 

 Priam, be called into requisition. It being now more 

 than fifty-nine years since the date of Priam's victory, 

 it is open to question if there will be even one person 

 out of every two hundred alive this day who would be 

 on Epsom Downs on that occasion. Assuming that 

 thirty thousand people assembled to witness the great 

 racing drama of 1880, less than two hundred of that 



