SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



Park, and on fine Bank Holidays, Whit 

 Monday and the first Monday in August, 

 it is reckoned that quite 50,000 people pay 

 this shilling toll. 



The Hurst Park programmes are varied, 

 but always liberally endowed, and usually 

 some nine or ten meetings are held in the 

 course of the year. The first flat racing 

 fixture usually takes place on Whit Monday 

 and Tuesday, and on the first day The Great 

 Whitsuntide Handicap of a mile and a half, 

 and worth something less than ;£i,ooo, is the 

 chief attraction, while on the second day the 

 Hurst Park Yearling Plate of ;C 1,000 for 

 three-year-olds holds pride of place. Some 

 fair second-class handicaps are run at this 

 meeting too, and the Monday crowd is, 

 generally speaking, the largest which any of 

 the southern enclosed courses know during 

 the racing year. The second meeting is held 

 on a Saturday in June, and though only a one- 

 day fixture, it takes somewhat high rank 

 owing to the excellence of the programme. 

 Three of the six races are, in point of fact, 

 very valuable prizes, which bring out the 

 best class, and seldom at any course — except 

 at Ascot — are so many big things included 

 in one card. The Victoria Cup, a handicap 

 of a mile and a quarter, worth to the winner 

 ;fi,470, is the most valuable of the three ; 

 it is supplemented by the Duchess of York 

 Stakes of a mUe and a half for three-year- 

 olds and the Hurst Park Foal Plate for 

 two-year-olds. The first of these is worth 

 ;£979, the second ;Ci,i3S to the winner, but 

 there are also prizes for second and third 

 horses, and for the nominators. The third 

 flat race fixture is the August Bank Holiday 

 Meeting, when the Holiday Handicap of 

 ;£500 often brings out a capital field. Three 

 weeks later in the same month a two-day 

 meeting is held, when the August Two-year- 

 old Stakes of ;£50o is the big event of the 

 first day, and the Hurst Park Lennox Stakes 

 of the second. This last-named race, which 

 is worth something between £i,^OQ and 

 ;C2,ooo to the winner, is for three-year-olds 

 over a mile and a half, and in 1901 it afforded 

 a memorable struggle between the Derby 

 winner Volodyovski and William the Third, 

 who in the following season proved himself 

 a great stayer by running away with the Gold 

 Cup and Alexandra Plate at Ascot. The 

 fifth and last flat race meeting of the year 

 is held on the first Saturday in October, when 

 the Molesey Park Handicap of a mile and a 

 quarter, the October Plate (weight for age ; 

 a mile and five furlongs) and the Stewards' 

 Nursery are the principal events. About 

 four cross-country meetings are also held 



during the winter months, and the National 

 Hunt Meeting, which is a movable feast, 

 chose Hurst Park for their venue in 1901. 



GATWICK AND LINGFIELD 

 Of the five Surrey racing centres, three, 

 viz. Epsom, Sandown, and Hurst Park, are 

 all somewhat close together, in the northern 

 portion of the county. Indeed the Epsom 

 and Sandown Park courses are not more 

 than seven or eight miles apart as the crow 

 flies, and from Sandown Park to Hurst Park 

 it is a walk of less than three miles through 

 the fields. The two remaining Surrey 

 courses are farther south, Gatwick being 

 situated on the main line between London 

 and Brighton, about a mile and a half beyond 

 Horley, and just over twenty-six miles from 

 town, while Lingfield is on the East Grin- 

 stead line, twenty-eight miles from London, 

 and about eight miles south-east of Gatwick. 

 Both courses are comparatively new. Ling- 

 field held its first meeting, under National 

 Hunt rules, on 15 November 1890, and 

 Gatwick was inaugurated in the following 

 year with flat racing ; as already said, it is the 

 successor of the old Croydon Meetings, the 

 last of which took place at Woodside — 

 between Croydon and Norwood — on 25 and 

 26 November, 1890. 



Gatwick is in many respects the best 

 enclosed Race Meeting in the kingdom, and 

 is admirably managed. It possesses a noble 

 course, a fine range of stands, a spacious 

 club enclosure, and a very large paddock. 

 In fact, everything is on a big scale at Gat- 

 wick, but being practically double the dis- 

 tance from London that Sandown and Hurst 

 Park are, and having no holiday fixtures, the 

 crowd is never so great as at the more sub- 

 urban meetings. The local population is 

 by no means large, and a huge majority of 

 the visitors come by special trains from 

 London or Brighton, Indeed, there is prac- 

 tically no ' outside ' crowd at these Mid 

 Surrey fixtures, firstly, because, as has just 

 been remarked, the population is scanty, and 

 secondly, because, except on an occasional 

 Bank Holiday, the Surrey working man does 

 not go racing. Reigate, Red Hill, East 

 Grinstead and Dorking are the only towns 

 within an easy drive of the Gatwick course, 

 and these places supply a very small pro- 

 portion of the attendances. 



The course at Gatwick is one mile and 

 seven furlongs round, and is broad every- 

 where, being 100 feet wide in the straight 

 mile, which is joined by the round course 

 five furlongs from home. There are con- 

 siderable gradients, the oval or round course 



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