THE GRAND STAND AT ASCOT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2998, 3 February 1881, Page 4

THE GRAND STAND AT ASCOT.

The "Field" in speaking of the Grand Stand at Ascot says:— Two years have passed since an Australian visitor to this country addressed a remarkable letter to one of our daily contemporaries. It was subscribed -< St. John," and dated from the Salisbury Hotel, the chief resort in London of English farmers and agricultural " scientists." Much to the surprise and disgust of untravolled Englishmen, our " candid friend" from the Antipodes expressed his amusement at the "egotistical tone "assumed by our newspapers and sporting men in speaking of Ascot Races. " Now, what are the real facts ?" he bluntly rejoined. *' Your racing is very indifferent; your course at Ascot is one of the very worst for sight-seeing I have ever been on ; your horses have neither the physique nor the speed of Australian horses ; your array of beauty and fashion is not to be compared to the sight which meets the eye on the Melbourne racecourse on a Cup day; your accommodation for visitors is of the most primitive order." "St John " proceeds to state that, in the March of 1878, Chester and First King ran almost a dead heat for the Melbourne Cup, two miles and a distance, in three minutes and thirty-two seconds. These Australian champions were, both of them, superb models of the thorough-bred, standing nearly sixteen hands high. The Ascot Stakes, on the other hand, were won in 1878 by Chesterton, a mean-looking animal, the distance, about two miles, being covered in three minutes and fifty-six seconds, Our Australian monitor further reminds us that no one at Ascot can see a race unless he is mounted upon the Grand Stand, and high up "at that." At Flomington, on the contrary, which is the Melbourne racecourse, half a million of people can, for a couple of shillings, see the horses mounted, saddled, and taking their preliminary canters, every yard of the race being visible to all from start to finish. In front of the Grand there is, he tells us, a magnificent lawn, superbly kept ; and as for the Australian beauties who, decked in faultless apparel, convert it between tho races into a flower garden bright with many colours, it would be unpatriotic in us to follow our stern critic in pronouncing that the daughters, of England cannot bear comparison with the Watteau-like picture presented by their fair rivals at Flemington upon a Cup day."