The Life of Fred Archer 23 
For the next few years he rode in many steeplechases and 
hurdle races, and at length settled down in Cheltenham as a 
professional horseman. 
He rode for Lord Strathmore and for several well-known 
owners, among them Prince Baratzky, who offered him a splendid 
engagement in Hungary if he would go abroad again. But 
Archer preferred his native town to any other part of England, 
and he had resolved in any case never again to leave his own 
country. 
Owing to the vigorous denunciations of Mr. Close, 
the incumbent of Cheltenham, the races had languished 
and had been discontinued. Indeed, the " Gloomy Dean " of 
those days also banned the theatre and almost all anmsements. 
In 1838, however, the local race meeting was re-organised 
as the Cheltenham and Cotswold Races on an improved 
course, with Lord Chesterfield as one of the stewards. In 
this year old Sam Darling won the Gloucestershire Stakes, and 
the year following Mr. E. Griffith's Lugwardine, ridden by 
Chappie, beat The Skater in a big field of horses. 
About this time the Cheltenham Races were held in Prest- 
bury Park, where we find both Archer and old Tom Oliver in 
the pigskin. Here, on one occasion. Archer had two mounts, 
one on Captain AUeyne's The Nigger, getting fourth, and 
another on Thurgarton, winning the race, Oliver on Vanguard 
being second. 
In the spring of 1847, Archer took part in the wonderful 
race for the Cheltenham Grand Annual, on which Lindsay Gor- 
don is said to have founded " How We Beat the Favourite." 
William Archer evidently regarded it as one of the most 
exciting events in which he ever took part. The late Mr. 
Holland, of Prestbury, Archer's connection and lifelong friend* 
once described the Noverton Steeplechase on the actual course 
which he said was flagged out by Lord Fitzhardinge, and it 
was the most difficult one over which the Cheltenham Steeple- 
chases were ever run. The winning-post was situated in a 
