Kirkland
WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1905. there can be no sort of question that it has more than once or twice been won by much inferior riders. Another gentleman who took the highest honours was Mr.
Saunders Davies, who rode for a number of years with no loss of nerve, with constantly increasing skill, and ranked with the very best of his contemporaries. Mr.
Atkinson must by no means be omitted as ASCETIC'S SILVER, 1906. one who holds his own against all comers.
Mr. H. Ripley should not be forgotten, nor Major Charles Beatty, D.S.O.; and from Mr. Arthur Yates's establishment at Bishop's Sutton sound horsemen constantly appeared and proved in public the good effects of their constant practice over his course there. Colonel Fisher was one of the busiest of these until his military duties called him from the racecourse, and another was Mr. J. C. Dormer (Mr. J. Upton), who headed the list of gentlemen riders one year, and was frequently close up until an accident at Sandown, which led to the loss of an eye, obliged him to retire; the Hon.
Reginald Ward was a successful exponent of Sutton training, as is Walter Bulteel (brother of the owner of Manifesto), who joined the professional ranks. It is impossible to give anything like an exhaustive list of the best gentlemen riders of the day.
Frank Hartigan, a nephew of Mr. Garrett Moore, was one of the very best; he, too, dropped his amateur status, and became a professional before he took to trainingwith extraordinary success. The bestknown amateurs at the time of writing are Mr. Percy Whitaker, the Hon. Aubrey Hastings, Messrs. Gaskell, Gunter, Captain R. C. de Crespigny, Messrs. O'Brien Butler, H. A. Brown and his brother Frank, especially promising young horsemen; Mr. A. W. Wood, whose career has been exceptionally long; and Mr. Dermot McCalmont, cousin and heir of the late Col. Harry McCalmont, the owner of Isinglass. Mr. George Thursby, who rides on even terms with professional jockeys, and holds his own against the best, is seen only on the flat. The best professional steeplechase riders of the day include E. Piggott, F. Mason, P. Cowley, R. Morgan, A.
Newey, E. Driscoll, Ivor Anthony, W.
Payne, Chadwick, and Walkington.
Qualification. A few years since, as already mentioned, an absurd distinction was drawn between "hunters " and " handi- EREMON, WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1907. cap steeplechase horses," and it may be interesting to trace the changes that have been made. Formerly there were steeplechases and hurdle races expressly for "hunters"; only hunters could run in flat races under National Hunt-or, as they were then called, Grand National Huntrules, and if hunters ran out of their own class they lost their certificates. Not seldom owners sacrificed whatever advantages were supposed to attach to the possession of these certificates, and the ridiculous nature of the distinction was rendered evident when they did so by running their horses in the Grand National. Old Joe was a hunter when he won that race, and he afterwards ran in the Cesarewitch. The idea was to keep apart the real hunter, the veritable "fox-catcher," and the racehorse that had been put to jumping; but as a very general rule the only actual difference between the two animals was that one had a certificate representing him to be what he was not. To be able to run in Hunters' Flat Races was the great desire of many owners, for then the speed of the thoroughbred would inevitably tell. A hunter was qualified by a certificate from a Master of Hounds saying that the horse had been hunted; and it was the custom to send racehorses to meets in order to qualify. Some Masters appreciated the responsibility; others, and the majority, were more lax. A fractious, excitable racehorse, totally unused to the surroundings of the hunting field, was apt to be a most unpleasant neighbour. If the boy rode him near the hounds -and not seldom the boy on the would-be hunter perfectly understood his missiondanger to them was imminent. The [STEEPLECHASING Master's great object usually was to get rid of the creature as soon as he possibly could.
Sometimes a mere appearance at the meet was enough; sometimes the horse would be cantered across a few fields, through gates, along roads, and so would turn up at a check, where his rider would take care that he was seen. Then application for the certificate would be made, and the racehorse that had never jumped a fence became a ،، qualified hunter." How remote a chance legitimate bearers of the title had against these racecourse hunters need not be said.
The best of the qualified animals had the business to themselves, to the exclusion of those for whom the stakes were supposed to be instituted; and, when an ex-racehorse appeared at a country hunt meeting where there had been hopes of genuine sport among local horses and their riders, the thing became a farce, for the quasi-hunter would almost inevitably be in the hands of a competent "sharp." If the animal had been schooled and could jump, hunters' steeplechases were equally destroyed, and still more so hunters' hurdle races-absurdities in themselves, for it is the business of a hunter to jump a country, not to fly hurdles where speed was first so essential.
The first endeavour to amend this state of things was the introduction of a rule stating that no horse, though it had a hunting certificate, should be qualified to run for hunters' races if during the twelve months prior to the day of starting it had run for a handicap, whether over a country or not, at home or abroad. In the early 'eighties this was supplemented by a further requisition that the hunter must not have run RUBIO, WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1908. under the recognised Rules of Racing since the age of two, and must have jumped all the fences at a meeting under Grand National Hunt Rules to the satisfaction of two of the stewards. At present horses, to be qualified to run in the few National STEEPLECHASING] Hunt Flat Races still contested, must have been placed by the judge first, second, or third in a steeplechase in Great Britain or Ireland; and the Rule continues to declare that they must have jumped all the fences LUTTEUR III., WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1909. and completed the whole distance of the course. They must be ridden in these Flat Races also by qualified riders that is to say, not by professional jockeys; and one of the matters which, at the time of writing, seems to demand the attention of the Stewards of the National Hunt, is whether the qualified rider" might not most judiciously be abolished, as the "hunter" he usually bestrode has been, so much to the benefit of the sport. Those who may ride under National Hunt Rules, other than jockeys licensed by the Committee, are given under Rules 92 and 93, p. 240. 66 Now, as a matter of fact, it is shrewdly suspected that, with very few exceptions, qualified riders are jockeys in disguise, who do not admittedly ride for hire, but do so indirectly, and it is the trickery of these men that leads to a great proportion of the scandals that come to light, or that often would come to light if suspicious circumstances were duly and successfully investigated. It will be seen how wide is the qualification for the gentleman-rider, and, considering that to have any chance of success a man must devote a great deal of time to the sport and ride frequently, there would be little hardship if it were demanded that riders must be qualified as gentlemen or farmers, or else obliged to obtain licences as professional jockeys. Under the most favourable conditions it, of course, takes a long time for a young man to obtain election to some of the political or social clubs, membership of which is a qualification; but the right sort of man, the rider whose cooperation would be to the advantage of the sport, should surely have very little difficulty in gaining admission to the Bibury, Croxton a Park, Ludlow, or Southdown Club, or to the Rooms at Newmarket. If he be person who cannot find sponsors for and secure election to any of these, or if he is not a farmer or a farmer's son, in the vast majority of cases he ought to be forced to appear what he is a man who makes a livelihood by riding. Some men who were practically jockeys used to take a hundred acres of land and pose as farmers, and the practice is not quite extinct in spite of amendments to the Rule that have been made, and are quoted in section (b) of Rule 92.
STEEPLECHASE COURSES.-Prior to the establishment of the National Hunt Committee, steeplechase courses were just what the managers of meetings chose to make them. There were temptations to err in both directions in that of excessive ease and of excessive severity; in the former, because the owner of the half-schooled hurdle jumper might be, and often was, tempted to enter for steeplechases, there being really nothing that the creature could not readily jump; in the latter, because a dangerously big fence would attract sensation-loving crowd. The Committee therefore decreed that courses should consist of so many fences of given dimensions, and though the comparative uniformity of the regulation course is somewhat to be regretted, the ground and gradients at different places do ensure a certain amount of variety, and, as will presently be noted in detail, courses are not by any means all the same. At first the tendency of the Committee was to make fences too easy, JENKINSTOWN, WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1910. a and as it is an axiom that the easiest course is the most dangerous-because horses are often run over them when half schooled, and not only beginners, but seasoned animals will chance obstacles that do not seem worth really rising at the open ،، ditch," which could scarcely be managed by an unschooled horse, was introduced.
This was a fence 4 ft. 6 in. high, of dead brushwood or gorse 2 ft. thick, with a ditch on the taking-off side 6 ft. wide and 3 ft. deep. It was nicknamed "the grave," and protests were raised by a section of those interested in the sport, some of whom, if riders, were not very bold, and if trainers, were men who did not care about taking very much trouble with their horses. There was, however, some risk of horses blundering into the cutting, either because they did not see just where it began, or because, knowing there was a ditch, they took off too soon. A guard rail was therefore put before the ditch; and though a few complaints about it are still occasionally heard, it is for the most part approved. The ob- GLENSIDE, WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1911. stacle which at present appears most open to criticism is the water jump-12 ft. of water with a fence before it only 2 ft. high.
Many riders are of opinion that the fence should be raised. Horses that have had little practice see the 24 inches of brushwood in front of them and are apt to disregard it as a trifle to be covered in their stride.
They may blunder in, or, what is more likely, may see the water suddenly, and, making a sudden effort, overjump themselves. Whether it is physically possible for a horse that has risen at a jump to make this effort when off the ground, with nothing to give him an impetus, is a disputed point; the only thing that can be said about it is that to the rider it feels as if the animal did so. A few words may be interpolated here as to the distances which jumpers habitually cover over fences. Some time since the writer was at Danebury watching horses being schooled over hurdles. One flight was placed just by the side of a broad road where two carts could easily pass each other. "Don't the horses hurt themselves by jumping on to the road [STEEPLECHASING when the ground is hard?" seemed a natural question. "Oh, they always clear that, and well beyond it," was Tom Cannon's reply. "You will see when they pass." Four of them approached. The animal in which we were particularly interested at the time was rather on the small side, about 15.2. They were not racing, but going a half-speed gallop. We noted where the little horse took off and where he landed, carefully measured the distance covered, and found it was as nearly as possible 28 feet. The 2-ft. fence and the 12 ft. of water make just half this, it will be seen, so that the water jump is far from formidable.
Best of all courses, in the opinion of those riders whose hearts are in the sport and never, on the contrary, in their boots, is