SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



of Banstead or Epsom, or the country about 

 Chipstead, are generally requisitioned, and 

 this is considered quite their best country. 

 On Saturdays they come as near London as 

 Coombe, or hunt the country about Ewell 

 and Chessington. They kill a fair number 

 of hares, and owe much of their present 

 prosperity to the labours of Mr. Simpson of 

 Hampton Wick, who has hunted the hounds 

 for many seasons, and to Mr. G. H, Long- 

 man of Epsom, the present master of the 

 Surrey Union, who at one time was a very 

 regular follower of the Worcester pack. The 

 Surbiton pack also show excellent sport, going 

 as a rule further west than do the Worcester 

 pack. By invitation both packs go to many 

 of the same places in turn, and it may be 

 added that lady followers, who run all day, 

 are by no means few. 



Point to point steeplechases are popular 



with the members ot the various Surrey 

 hunts, and in most years the Old Surrey and 

 Burstow have a fixture of this description. 

 The West Surrey and the Warnham Stag- 

 hounds too, have point to point meetings, and 

 the good natural course which lies by the 

 banks of the Mole, at Slyfield, between Cob- 

 ham and Leatherhead has often been requisi- 

 tioned by the Surrey Union and the West 

 Surrey Staghounds in successive weeks. Should 

 the date of the fixture become public — and 

 it generally does— enormous crowds are at- 

 tracted, and lately it has been deemed advis- 

 able to go further from the railway, to play 

 what in these districts is always the final act 

 of the hunting season. 



The kennels of the Staff College drag- 

 hounds, are just within the borders of Surrey, 

 at Camberley, but the ' lines ' run lie en- 

 tirely within the adjoining county of Berks. 



RACING 



The reasons for Surrey's high position in 

 the racing world may be briefly put forward. 

 Firstly, the Derby is decided on a Surrey 

 common, and this race, in spite of the insti- 

 tution of the ten thousand pound prize, holds 

 its own as the most important race of the 

 year, and still draws by far the largest crowd. 

 Secondly, there is more racing in Surrey than 

 in any other county ; and lastly, the modern 

 enclosure first came into existence, in 1875, 

 at Esher, where was decided in 1886 the 

 first mammoth prize ; and now the county 

 includes within its boundaries four of the five 

 enclosed courses, which take rank as the best 

 and most important of their kind in the south 

 of England. 



Epsom has now six days of racing, and in 

 the present year (1904) Sandown Park has 

 eighteen days, Hurst Park sixteen days, Ling- 

 field sixteen days, and Gatwick fifteen 

 days, which gives a total of seventy-one 

 days on which racing takes place. It is true 

 that at some of the enclosures the meetings 

 held during the winter months are under 

 National Hunt rules, but if we deduct the 

 days which are given over to cross country 

 sport, there still remain forty-six days of flat 

 racing in Surrey against the twenty-nine days 

 Newmarket can show. 



No other county can approach these totals, 

 and therefore from a numerical point of 

 view Surrey stands first as a racing county. 

 Yet curiously enough the county is not 

 exactly a sporting one, in the same sense as 

 Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and some midland 



counties. Comparatively few horses are bred 

 in Surrey, and at the moment there are only 

 three studs — for the breeding of thorough- 

 breds — of any importance, viz. the Cobham 

 stud at Cobham, the Westerham Hill stud, 

 owned by Mr. Musker, which is partly in 

 Kent, and the private stud of Mr. Stedall 

 near Denmark Hill, The assertion that the 

 county of Surrey is not exactly a sporting 

 one is in a great measure borne out by its 

 history ; in the first quarter of the nineteenth 

 century, after racing had become popular all 

 over the country, Surrey could only boast four 

 flat-race meetings, viz. Epsom, Guildford, 

 Egham, and Reigate ; and of these Epsom was 

 the only one of the four places at which two 

 meetings were held in the year. At the same 

 period race meetings were held at some twenty 

 different towns in Yorkshire, while the Mid- 

 lands, especially Staffordshire and Worcester- 

 shire, provided an extraordinary number of 

 small fixtures, 



Reigate, Guildford, and Egham have been 

 barren of sport for many years ; the last 

 Reigate meeting was held in 1864 ; the last 

 at Guildford in 1870 ; and at Egham in 

 1884 ; the Croydon meeting has been de- 

 funct since 1890. The interests of the last 

 named however were transferred to Gatwick, 

 where the old Croydon titles for the principal 

 steeplechases and hurdle races are used. 

 Epsom alone of the old meetings remains ; 

 and in spite of all modern rivalry the Derby 

 is still the greatest race of the year, and con- 

 fers greater lustre on its winner than does 



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