GOSSIP ABOUT RACING.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 356, 22 March 1861, Page 4

GOSSIP ABOUT RACING.

Horace Walpole was building his new tower at Strawberry; Boswell courting the notice of Mrs. Rudd ; Cook starting on his last voyage; the Duchess of Kingston in jeopardy for bigamy; the court in dismay at the news from America ; the provincials there were melting for bullets the leaden statue of their • late king,' George III.; Charles Fox, no longer tory, was in ecstaciea that,the Americans were quietly setting about governing themselves in face of the enemy; and Jack the painter was trying to fire the ships and stores in Portsmouth harbor—when all the clubs and coteries, whose attention was divided between • sport' in particular and things in general, forgot the outside world, to canvas the enlivening matter of the new stake proposed for Doncaster.

The corporation there, whec the last quarter of the last century opened on it, had readied the end of its tether with respect to liberality. It had subscribed its few pounds for ' pates,' and it had appealed to thegentlemen of tbecountyforaid. It had never been so active since the period when municipal—but we will not fall back into the annals cf a corporate town. 'Turpe est homini nobili ejus civitatis in qua versetur, jus ignorari '—no doubt; but we do not translate this passage as meaning 'Every genileman who frequents Doucaster races ought to kuow the character and history of its corporation.'

Of the difficulties of writing history in connection with any subject we have had innumerable iustances. That of the St. Leger affords one more to the accumulated number. Authorities differ as to the identity of the winner of the first.' Sitlinger.' The peerage claims it for the man who had been and was again to be prime minister, namely, the Marquis of Rockingham, with his Sampson filly, in 1776. The baronetage cl ims it for Sir Thomas Gascoyne, with Lis famed Hollandaise, in 1778. The two statements are easily accounted for. In the year 1776 there appears for the first time, on a Doncaster card of the races, the entry for ' A sweepstakes of 25 guineas each, for three year olds. Colts, 8 stone ; fillies, 7 stone 12 $}.; in one two mile beat.' The cards for 1777 bear a similar record; but in the succeeding year, instead of' A sweepstakes,' we find the words ' St. Leger's Stakes,' by which name cards and calenders have recorded the great contest ever since. In the first of the abovementioned years Lord Buckingham was the winntr. Mr. St. Leger's Scrub colt coming in ninth. In 1778, when the race first assumed the name of the most fashionable of gentlemen, Sir Thomas Gascoyne carried off the prize ; Mr. St Leger's Minor filly appearing ninth at the winning post. At this result a shout was raised by the iriends of the victor, loud enough almost to have reached the family house at Aberford, or to rouse the Judge Gascoyne, so famous in history, who sleeps his long sleep in the fine old church at Harewood. That district of Yorkshire could talk of little else at the time. Compared with their great triumph, what was the opening of the vast new dock at Hull? The btst to. be said on both subjects was, that two memorable circumstances had occurred in the county in the same week. The dock, however, has been the more profitable triumph to its subscribers.

We have said that St. Leger was a fashionable gentleman. This is doing him but slender justice. He was a wit who, for a quarter of a century or more had kept his club alive, arid the arm-chairs at White's filled with vivacious young fellows long after the old rakes had gone to bed. He was lively, dashing, and, as will be the case with wits, often absurd. He was audacious too ; for on one occasion, when exhibiting extraordinary alacrity to swear to some matter in a court of justice, the judge remarking, ' You are very ready sir, I see, to take an oath,' he answered, ' Of course I am, my lord ; my father was a judge !' This was a hit at some gentleman of the time who held, or had recently held, the scales of justice. Whether dating from Norman or Plantagenet, the blood of the St. Legei's answers to the legend on their shield of arms— 'Haut et bou.' Leaning on the shoulder of a lcniglit of that name, William the Conquerer stepped ashore at Bulverhythe, near Hastings. The Kentish lands of Ulcombe rewarded that and other services. The name shines throughout the stirring period of the Crusades. Its glory might be said to have culminated when Sir Thomas St. Leger married Anne, the sister of Edward IV., and widow of the Duke of Exeter, were it not remembered how that termagant princess treated her second spouse even more infamously than she had treated her first. The Irish branch of the family, at the head of which is Viscount Doneraile, are descended, through the iemale line from the famous old lord lieutenant, Sir Anthony St. Leger. A branch more illustrious dignifies the English peerage in the ducal house of Rutland. The luckless fellow who married the royal virago, Anne, had a daughter by that tremendous lady, who espoused young George Manners, and iheir son was created Earl of Rutland, first peer cf a house which, from time immemorial, has been distinguished by its love for, and patronage of, the national sport. Their motto, too, is not a bad one to run with to the winning post: Pour y parvenir is the aim of every one there concerned.

It was not in compliment to either of these houses, however, that the new stake at Doncaster received the name by which it has become celebrated all over the world. The fact is that the collateral branches, known only by the old Norman appellation, were of considerably notoriety during the last half of the eighteenth century, and also at the beginning of the present. Their names turn up everywhere, in pulpits and fat piebends; on the front and back stairs at court; at the head of crack regiments Rnd at the 'tail of scolding ladders planted against American forts; on the hot plains of India, and on «he dusty race-course of Great Britaiu and Ireland. One of them, Anthony St. Leger, was located at Park Hill, near DonCaster. There were many of them, and 'so many men, so many fortunes." -The luck of the Legers was as variable as that of racing. Its extremes may be voted by reference to two entries in the newspapers of the last century. One of them iudicatc-s a social prize pleasantly won, in the announcement that • John St. Leger, Esq, was married to Miss Butler, niece to Lord Lanesborougb, £40,000.' The other paragiaph points to a man 'distanced' in his race of lift?. It informs us that on a certain day died, «in a mean lodging at the Bowling Pins, Kolls-buildings, Fetter-lave, George St. Leger, Esq.' Wbat a descent from the state once shared by a Plantagenet princess! What a contrast between life in the old manor-house of Ulcombe, and death iv a 'boozing ken' off 2?eUer*ltme,

Suoh were the St. Legers and their fortunes. We need hardly cay that in racing, as in the ordinary affairs and contentions of life, the hero of yesterday is the vanquished of today, and the high mettled racer whose value is reckoned by thousands one year, can hardly realise a few ten-pound notes the next. Cheater Biliy swept the plain in the van of all competitor and we have seen that once royally-owned steed painfully tailing it, iv his old days, after the slow Boroughbridge harriers. Swiss, for which Lord Darlington gave 2000 sovereigns, was sold at Donoaster six years afterwards, for ,£SO. Pttre's Theodore won, at the same place, an immortality of renown, so it was thought, by beating Orde Powlette's Swap, which subse queutly beat Theodore with infinite facility. There, too, the great favorite of the hour, Birmingham, conquered the greater iavorite, Priam; and then went with all his laurels to Holy well, where he was disgracefully vanquished by a third rate cocktail. There was as much regret at the demonstration of the instability of fortune as there was ultra measure of sorrow, a century or two ago, in Doncaster, at the sudden demise of the famous horse White nose. The sporting world looked on this event as a public calamity, and one enthusiastic amateur proposed that a monument should be raised in memory of the defunct —after the fashion cf one which Lipsius declared he had seen in imperial Rome.

In those old days the spirit of sport was occasionally apt to run riot, and gentlemen addicted thereto would exhibit themselves, in the intervals of meetings, uuder exceptional circumstances ; performing wonderful feats, and winning fame and guineas thereby. One of these uneasy individuals, athirst for glory, undertook to ride his own boar a match against time, and gained it. An officer of marines betted deeply in his own favor that he would ride a blind horse a certain number of times round a course, and up and down o portion of it, without reins in bis bands. He accomplished his object by cutting the reins in two, and attaching the ends to each leg, by which his steed was safely guided. As late as 1786, just previous to the Doneaster meeting, the Steyne at Brighton was crowded with spectators to witness a match between an officer, with a jocky on his back (the rider weighing 7st. 51b.) booted and spurred, against a bullock unmounted. In this contest the quadruped was defeated by the other animal. The ' captains' of the last century were especially distinguished for their devotion to 'sport.' They were the crack riders in all matches. Doncaster was excited to a great pitch of enthusiasm before the period when her enthusiasm was annually aroused on account of 1 't Leger,' by a race of which the whole town formed but a portion of the course. On the 23rd of August, 1773, at six o'clock on a Monday morning, two gentlemen appeared at the corDer of Portland-street, Oxford-street. Both were admirably mounted. One of them, Captain Mulcaster, on the mare of a friend, Captain Hay. The other, Mr. Walker, rode his own horse. They started thence on a race to York, two hundred miles, without changing steeds. It was such a race as Arabs ride, proving, the strength and endurance, as well as the speed of the horses. The first ninety miles were accomplished in six hours. The two gentlemeu jockeys passed the end of Doncaster race-course nearly together, early on Tuesday morning, amid such cheering as was never heard there again till the days of Hollandaise, and Hambletonian. But Walker was, at that time, sorely distressed, and .his steed altogether broke down when between Doncaster and Tadcaster. The captain went ahead, and reached Ousebridge, York, in forty hours thirty-five minutes after he and his companion had started from Portlandstreet, thereby winning 400 guineas, besides wagers. The winning mare drank twelve bottles of wine on her journey, and was well enough by Thursday morning to take a gallop on Knavesmire—the race oourse just outside the city of York.

Such was the feat of a gallant and active captain. During the time occupied by a portion of it, while the north was in an uproar on the passage of the mare and her rider, the king was on Kew-green, gossiping with Beattie and old Dr. Majendie, discussing the merits of books, canrassing questions of morality, weighing religious difficulties, comparing preachers, and, on the part of the king, expressing fears that manhood" wad losing its dignity, and that the English language was on the decline. Had he witnessed tho ride from Doncaster to York, he would, perhaps, have been confirmed in his opinion at the sight of the captain ; but he would have been compelled to confess that the language had lost nothing in force, however it might have suffered in elegance of expression. This was the period when Doncaster was 1 looking up,' and becoming a formidable rival to York. The races in the former locality, had however, as much of a business aspect as one of pleasure. The old prints of the early races would lead us to iufer that they were less cared for by the pub!io than was the case in later years. There is, indeed, a substantial grand stand, but it is only thinly dotted over, here and there, by visionary-looking sportsmen, who might pass for ghosts permitted to revisit their old haunts, in order that they might convince themselves of the unreality of their mundane pursuits. Then there is one solitary, rumbling old coach, tottering its way to the subscribers' entrance, with marks about it of having seen hard service on this and other occasions. Meanwhile, the race is in progress below, and the steeds engaged are jumping off the ground just as greyhouuds do when they suspect a hare to be in their vicintiy, and long to obtain a sight of him. As for the small public it is divided into the indifferents and the unruly. The former are lounging upon, over, and against the rails, gazing in every impossible direction with respect to their bodies, and conveying au idea of a lunatic asylum out for a holiday. The unruly are running after the raceft—satirical suggestion that these are'not of the" swiftest— stimulating them by shouting, waving of quaint old hats, flinging up of arms* which look like legs, and indulging in various in^isciibable antics, free from all supervision of police. Such was the early picturesque idea of Doncaster! It had its poetical element also.

The poetry of the course—the songs having reference solely to the horses and their riders, with the feats accomplished hy them—is not of a Pindaric and permanent character. It is rather hearty than elegant; in expression more rough than refined. You may hear a good deal of it in Doncaster in racing time as you pass, by tavern doors. While foreign minstrels in the street are winning a shower of fourpenny-pieces from the young ladies in an adjacent balcony, charmed by those vagrant reminiscences of favorite operatic ditties, do not despise the humbler and heartier nriostrelsy, nor indeed

the feeling that can be gratified by the peripatetic company of melodists, but go on your way rejoicing ? humming if you will, the appropriate hues of Horace:—

Denique non otnnes eadem nrirantur amantque Carmine tv gaudes, hie delectatur iambis.,

As matters of record, however, the racing ballads are worth collecting. They preserve the memory of many things besides the value of the horses, the merits of the riders, and the virtues of the gentlemen who own the ouo and hire the other. They who are curious in such literature, may consult Ritson's " Poetic Garland." Dr. Ingledew haß inserted in his collection the metrical details of the never-to-be-forgotten race or races here betwetu Flying Dutchman and Voltigeur; and, as a general and philosophical history of a racer in the abstract, no better is to be found than thai given by Dibden, whom, by the way, young yachtsmen are asking us to abuse as a naval poet, because lia sea terras are not stiictly accoidn g to the grammar of gentlemen aud lubbers afloat.

Doncaster has been specially fortunate in racing poets. They have really struck a sportive tyre, and they ride their Pegasus with loose rein; but with no lack of whip and spur to stimulate him to gainesooaeness. The course has hud 1 10, iia wits as well as its bards; and half of what is attributed to the northern jockeys as mere ignorance is really to be laid to tbtir appreciation of fun. When Alcides first appealed on the course, they kuew well enough the quantity of the syllables j but they knew also the quality of the horse. They accordiugly called him All Sides; and nothing could be more appropriate, for the nag was of the very thinnest, looked as if he were cut out of pasteboard, had no back, and, to completely authorise his nick-name, never ran straight.

Nor were the north country ' Jocks' less witty on their masters than on their steeds. No man was better known at Doncaster, no man altogether so fortunate there, for a time, as M<\ Petre. At that period, however, he exemplified the truth of the proverb implying that love does not favor the favorite of fortune. The lucky muster of a racing stud had been unsuccessful in more than one suit to' very many ladies; and as he once walked on to the course, Tommy Lye, that atomy in top-boots, remarked to his fellows, 'Eh! look oop, lads; yon's Solicitor, general !* In the time of honest and ludicrous Tommy some changes had been established which rendered the races at Doucaster, but especial y the St. Leger, more popular both with trainers and the people at large. The amount of subscription was raised to fifty guineas, and the weights were settled at Bst. 31b. for fillies. The owner of the second horse, too, did not approach honor so nearly without reaping some of its substantial fruits, by receiving a hundred guineas out of the stakes. Thenceforth, Doncaster became more ' fashionable' than any similar locality in the north.

A day there, when the place was really in its prime, was by no means an idle day for the gay people who were generally making nearly a week of it, and were often paying a guinea a night for their beds. The men began the morning, if last night's business had had not incapacitated them, by hunting—cub hunting, if they could get nothing better. They went out eaily, and were easily back for the races at two o'clock. These.over they dined, and then went to the play, the capital Yoik company supplying the actors, and the entire county and some districts beytnd furnishing glowing samples of north-of-England beauty. This portion of the day's hard toil, or delicious pleasure, aa some thuught if, being concluded at a reasonable hour, the elite of the audience repaired to the ball, and so 'kept it up' till the grey dawn of a comiug September morning. The dissipation was compounded for by small subscriptions to local charities and religious rfocitties—a course, the spirit of which was something akin to that of the famous Princess d'Harcourt, who both gambled and cheated till 4 o'clock in the morning, but who never went to Led till she had received the sacrament at the hands of her chaplain.

Doubtless, many of the nobility the most abandoned to the allurements of sport were influenced by principals superior to these. Among them we mention the Marquis of Exeter, who once proposed that the race for the Riddlesworth Stakes should not take place on the Monday, as, in order to be present at them he was obliged to do what he would rather avoid—namely, travel on the cfuuday. Gen. Grosvenor, if we remember rightly, treated the proposal with a laugh, and a ' rider' to the effect that the Riddlesworth Stakes should be in such case henceforth called the " Exeter Change ! "

la the early period of Doncaster races, previous to the ' Sillinger* the ' Coop day ' was the day for, lord and lout, for the Lady Clara Vere de Veres and the Cicely Jenkinses. For the whole country-side the cup day remains still the favorite of the week, and attracts its especial thousands in the north. When the Leger rose from its nine, ten, or a dozen subscribers to thirty or forty at fiveand twenty guineas each, and to its seventy or eighty at fifty guineas each, offering chances of fortunes to be won, requiring superior horses, and furnishing opportunities for realising great profits eveu by their sale if they distinguished themselves, it became an essentially fashionable stake, and the day of running for it; an emphatically fashionable day. In its performance and its issues Yorkshire was indeed immensely interested ; but the hopes,' fears, delight, or despair of the 'country people' were all reserved for 't' race for t' coop.' It wa3 the first prize the old corporations had ever subscribed for, and the example set by a sporting queen in connection with the same subject bad not lost its influence on those unconscious of it.

We allude to Qneen Anne. She not only gave cups to be ruu for in the north, but this remarkably placid woman was very eager as a runner of her own horses on the turf. Pick's old * Historical Racing Calendar,' published yearly at York, from 1709 to 1785, affords evidence'of this fact. The queen'entered her horses at York, to run for her own cups: but she appears to have been unfortunate. Iv July, 1712, her grey gelding Pepper, came in fifth and third, in two heats, for her Majesty's hundred guinea cup. In the following year her grey horse Mustard ran seveuth and fifth for a similar prize; four mile heats, it must be remembered, but the horses were six years old. At the summer meeting of 1714, Anne's bay horse Sfar won a plate of £40 value, in four heats, thus lost and recovered—four, three, one, This was the sporting queen's last triumph-—one of which ahe was never conscious. After this royal race had been run, 'an express,'says old Pick, • arrived Avith advice of the death of her Majesty Queen Annie; upon which the nobility and gentry immediately left the field, and at*

tended the lord mayor (Wo, Redman Esq.,) and Archbishop Dawes, who proclaimed his Majesty King George I. after which mostof ihe nobility set off for L ondon.— Athenaeum.