Part 32

words “The Mate” had printed on the invitation tickets to the Grimsby Town Hall Dinner, prepared in honour of Mr. Richardson’s victory. After Reugny’s success the rider of the latter and Disturbance married the Countess of Yarborough; and, long since retired from the race saddle, now amuses himself at golf in the summer and hunting in the winter. He comes racing occasionally, and has for years had colours registered. They were of a different hue until the death of Capt. Machell, when the white and blue cap which he has on in my picture was substituted. The photo is a copy of a painting in oil, a presentation to Mr. Richardson after his two Liverpool wins.

In Mr. E. P. Wilson’s sixteen attempts to win the Grand National, he was very near the mark on Congress when Regal beat him by a neck in 1876. He travelled as far as 1884 before scoring his first win on Voluptuary and then followed it up the next season on the uncertain Roquefort, on which he would probably have won a second time had the horse not fallen over the rails in the straight, when Gamecock triumphed. At any rate, in his long career, which started in 1873 and terminated in 1890, he did remarkably well. Congress, as before said, was his first mount, Hettie the last, and it was on the latter mare, although unsuccessful, he had the honour of wearing the colours of the King. A portrait in the Royal racing livery would no doubt be more effective to my group, but is not available, so one in hunting costume, from a recent photo taken by Frost, of Loughboro’, takes its place. Mr. Wilson some time ago changed his home from Ilmington to Loughboro’, retiring first from race-riding and then from training. He has, however, started a new career. At Loughboro’ I hear that he makes a good host at the Bull’s Head Hotel; when away from home he sometimes is found wielding the flag and officially despatching the racer and steeplechaser he loved so well.

Mr. Beasley’s death some months ago, after retirement from riding between the flags, caused general regret, but yet recalled a splendid Liverpool career. His three winners, Empress, Woodbrook, and Frigate, were all praiseworthy triumphs, the last-named being the most difficult, but perhaps the most acceptable, as the old mare had previously tried there so often. But Mr. Beasley was not without his disappointment at Liverpool, for fresh in my memory is that of the 1882 defeat of Cyrus, when Lord Manners won on a former stable companion, Seaman. That defeat was a head, and on one other occasion only has the judge ever given a Liverpool by that distance. Spahi in 1887 was also a disappointment when he fell so early in the race. Of Mr. Gubbins’ horse much more was expected. Mr. Beasley, however, knew how to take failures as well as sweets. He came of a good riding family, as the National of 1879 corroborates. Neither was successful, but in connection with the chase I think it is a record to find Tommy, Harry, Willie, and Johnnie, four brothers, all in one Aintree battle. The Liberator won that year. It is Mr. Harry Beasley I have to thank for my portrait of the brother with such a splendid Liverpool score against his name. Mr. Harry’s record is not quite so good, but nevertheless will bear inspection. One win (Come Away) and three consecutive seconds and a third is certainly not so indifferent out of thirteen mounts.

And last, but not least, Arthur Nightingall is approached. He began to ride in the Liverpool in 1886 on Baron de Tuyll’s The Badger. He had no mount through a mishap to his horse at the eleventh hour last year, and as I have said earlier he quite expects to make another effort this season. Nightingall is of opinion that Ilex, the first winner he rode, was the best, and his subsequent running with such as Cloister, and Come Away under big weights corroborates the notion. His win on Ilex, however, was far more easily achieved than that on either Why Not or Grudon; in fact, when speaking of Why Not, Nightingall has been heard to say that he was glad when he lifted the horse over the last fence; furthermore, so beaten were his opponents at the finish that he thinks he could have won on either of the other three who followed him home. Why Not did fairly well in his hands again when Soarer scored.

Now I am at my journey’s end. Space has not permitted me to tell of the many riders of single winners, but before I stay my pen in this long story of National successes, I must, indeed, indulge in the old cry of “one for the losers.” Plenty of good men and true, if they have only ridden one winner, well know the difficulty of accomplishing success. In my researches I find at Aintree fine horsemen, professional or otherwise, like Mr. Arthur Yates, Mr. W. Bevill, Robert I. Anson, Richard Marsh, the King’s trainer, Mr. Gordon, Mr. W. R. Brockton, Capt. W. Hope, Johnstone, Ben Land, the Earl of Minto (then Mr. Rolly), the brothers Holman, James Jewitt, Mr. Lushington, Capt. Smith, Col. Harford, and many others I cannot now recall are of the number. Many of these, too, are still in the land of the living.

ARTHUR F. MEYRICK.

A Hundred Years Ago.

(FROM THE _SPORTING MAGAZINE_ OF 1806.)

A notorious deer stealer, of the name of Smith, was apprehended by Hamilton and Lovett, officers, on Thursday morning, January 30th, by virtue of a warrant issued by the magistrates of Northamptonshire, which was backed at Marlborough Street office. The charge against the prisoner was for deer stealing in the park of the Earl of Pomfret, in the county of Northampton, where depredations had been committed to a considerable extent, as well as in various other parks in that neighbourhood. It was stated that a white buck had been selected for Christmas dinner in Earl Pomfret’s park, but that he was discovered to have been stolen when the keepers sought to take him for slaughter. The prisoner was represented as belonging to a gang of offenders some of whom were in custody in the country. He was the _Robin Hood_ of the gang, and when committing depredations in the forests his bravado and fierceness of temper struck such terror into the minds of the keepers that when he was known to be poaching, even alone, no one dared to approach him. The prisoner, according to his own account, had carried on a successful trade in this way for many years with impunity. He did not consider deer stealing as any moral offence, but merely sporting, which he had been brought up to, and which he could never desist from. He was ordered to be committed to the county gaol of Northampton.

* * * * *

A match of pigeon-shooting took place at Heston on Thursday, February 13th, for twenty-five guineas, between J. Aaron, Esq., a gentleman of sporting celebrity, and Mr. Dunford, who was considered one of the first shots in Hampshire. Fifteen pigeons were allotted to each sportsman, and Mr. Dunford commenced the sport—which of these should produce most dead birds in fifteen shots. He killed the first nine, but hit the tenth bird without effect, and the eleventh he missed. The other four birds were despatched, making thirteen dead. Mr. Aaron followed, and killed eleven birds successively, when betting was seven to four on his performance. The twelfth and thirteenth birds were hit without effect, and the fourteenth he killed, and missed the fifteenth, by which he lost the wager.

* * * * *

Monday, the 10th, the stud of the late Premier, Mr. Pitt, consisting of nine saddle horses, was disposed of by public auction at Tattersall’s. The hon. gentleman was not distinguished for the excellence of his cattle, and in his carriage he actually drove job-horses. Of those brought to the hammer a bay gelding, six years old, by Pipator, fetched the greatest price, and sold for 130 guineas. It was put in at 40 guineas, and when it had reached 50 a person present, who had been in the employ of the late proprietor, bid at once 100 guineas, and it was ultimately knocked down to him. A gelding, by Grog, which Mr. Pitt used as a charger, fetched 72 guineas, and the whole 438 guineas.

The Sportsman’s Library.

The forty-third edition of John Wisden’s _Cricketers’ Almanack_[6] is a bigger thing than ever, and now the chronicle of the cricket of the year consists of over 700 pages, which fact demonstrates very forcibly how the popularity of cricket has increased since the first issue of Wisden in 1864, when 112 pages comprised the whole work.

Now that the other cricket annuals, the old green and red Lillywhites, no longer appear, the responsibility of chronicling the history of the game falls upon Mr. Sydney Pardon, the well-known journalist, who has now for some years so ably edited _Wisden_.

We agree with Mr. Pardon that the task of preparing _Wisden_ does not become easier with the lapse of years, so vast is the amount of interesting matter which has to be compressed into one volume. The five cricketers of the year, whose photographs form the frontispiece, are Joe Vine, that keenest of cricketers in Sussex, who seems to enjoy nothing in life more thoroughly than chasing the ball all over the field, and if required will cheerfully field in the country at both ends.

He is a very good batsman, as his many fine partnerships with C. B. Fry for the first wicket amply testify. But the most interesting feature of Vine’s cricket was his bowling, which for a year or two nonplussed the best batsmen. He was able to bowl the leg-twisting ball at a quicker pace, both through the air and off the pitch, than any other English bowler, and when he found his length he was very deadly, reminding one of the best ball of Mr. G. E. Palmer, the Australian.

It is an interesting enough historical fact with regard to the greatest leg-twist bowlers, that their careers have generally been extremely brief. Mr. Palmer seems to have lost his length owing to his cultivation of the leg-twist. Mr. R. C. Ramsay, in 1882, was for Cambridge University a terror for a few weeks, and Messrs. C. L. Townsend, the late E. A. Nepean, and the brothers Steel, have all had great successes by this method in their time, but, somehow, no cricketer seems to have succeeded in the craft of bowling leg-twisters for a very long time, with the notable exception of Mr. Warwick Armstrong, who, during the last Australian tour in this country, bowled no less than 1,027 overs, of which 308 were maiden overs.

Joe Vine can point to a couple of very fine bowling performances. In 1901 he took sixteen wickets at Nottingham—eight in each innings—for 161 runs, and so enabled Sussex to win at Trent Bridge for the first time for forty years. In 1902, at Hastings, against the Australians, he took 7 wickets for 31 runs; but sad to say, in 1905 the 21 wickets he captured for his county cost over 41 runs apiece!

Mr. L. G. Wright, the veteran Derbyshire cricketer, justly enough, is one of the selected five, and although he is now over 44 years of age, he is by common consent held to be the best “point” amongst first-class fieldsmen of to-day. He stands close up to the batsman, and his agility and quickness are quite astonishing, for of recent years perfect wickets and academic batsmanship have rendered the post of point proper all but obsolete.

An interesting feature of Mr. Wright’s cricket is, that like a good vintage wine, it appears to improve with age. He first played for Derbyshire in 1883, and since 1887 he has been a regular member of the team when he could play, and last year, in his twenty-second season, he came out easily top of the county averages, with an aggregate of 1,651 runs for 38 innings, giving an average of 43 runs per innings.

Amongst other big performances he scored a century in each innings against Warwickshire at Birmingham. He scored 176 out of 323 in the first innings and followed on with 122 out of 197, in first and out last.

We understand that a very influential committee has been formed to organise a testimonial, and we wish the scheme every success. Probably, Mr. Wright holds the record of having played upon the losing side in more county matches than any other cricketer, and so his sustained good play for Derbyshire is all the more commendable.

George Thompson is another star cricketer who has lent much importance to the doings of a weak team, and it is not too much to say that, but for Thompson, Northamptonshire could not have last year gained admission to the first class. Since his first appearance in 1895 he has put in consistently good work both with ball and bat, and, whether for his county, or for the Players, or the Marylebone Club, he is always one of the most useful men on a side, as he also proved himself to be when, with Mr. Warner’s team in New Zealand, he took 177 wickets at a cost of under seven runs a-piece, and, in the West Indies, with Lord Brackley’s team, he took 126 wickets for ten runs a-piece.

Those tried and valuable cricketers, Walter Lees and David Denton, complete the gallery of five, and it may well be said of them that if they had played more often in the test matches of last season no one would have been surprised. In the absence of Mr. MacLaren, Denton was included in the England team at Leeds, but it was not one of his lucky days. Lees was reserve man on each occasion, without actually playing in any of the matches. At the time of writing Denton is the mainstay of the batting line of Mr. P. F. Warner’s team in South Africa, and it is just as well for the party that the Yorkshireman should find himself in luck.

There are some interesting personal reminiscences of the late Mr. R. A. H. Mitchell, written by Mr. Russell Walker and another old cricketer; and Captain W. J. Seton contributes a very complete article upon public school cricket. The list of cricket records is a rapidly increasing feature of the general information supplied by the editor, and now extends to some twenty-two pages, whilst no fewer than seventeen pages are taken up by short obituary notices of cricketers who died in 1905, there being many well-known names in the sad list. The record of the year’s cricket is more voluminous than ever, and the full doings and analyses of the Australian tour run into sixty-two pages.

In the records of the Australian wicket-keepers we are surprised to notice that whilst Kelly caught 19 and stumped 7, Newland caught 12 and stumped 7, and yet Newland was regarded by everybody as very considerably inferior to Kelly, and kept wicket upon comparatively few occasions.

[Illustration:

Fig. 73.—Proportions of the Horse in Profile

From Goubaux and Barrier. (By permission of Messrs. Lippincott) (From “The Horse: Its Treatment in Health and Disease.”) ]

It is rather remarkable that of the many cricketers who played against the Australians only two bowled more than 100 overs against them, and these two, Mr. W. Brearley and Wilfred Rhodes, bowled 214 and 208 overs respectively. The bowler who bowled the highest number of overs next to these two is Haigh, with 99·4 overs, so that he was only short of 100 overs by two balls.

Mr. Brearley, with 37 wickets, got nearly twice as many Australian wickets as any one else, and Jack Hearne gets the best average with 7 wickets for 67 runs.

Mr. J. N. Crawford, the Repton and Surrey cricketer, supplies an interesting page in cricket history. Up to the end of July he was Captain of the Repton XI., and scored for his school 766 runs for an average of 85·11, and took 51 wickets at an average cost of 12·96. After this he was able in the few remaining weeks of the season to play enough first-class cricket to amass 543 runs, with an average of 33·93, and to take 47 wickets, his bowling average of 18·46 placing him eighth in the list of English bowlers. We cannot call to mind a parallel case of a school-boy doing such an exceptional amount of good work, both in school cricket and county cricket, in the same season. It would appear that the only thing to have prevented Mr. Crawford from representing the Gentlemen against the Players was that Repton School had a prior claim upon his services. This winter Mr. Crawford is enjoying great success in South Africa, both with bat and ball, and his return to this country will probably be jealously awaited by the keenest members of the Surrey Club. The date of Mr. Crawford’s birth is given as December 1st, 1886, so he has time in his favour, anyway.

The study of _Wisden_ in the winter months is a fascinating pastime, but we have run on long enough, and must leave our readers to their own cogitations and musings over the book itself.

The second volume[7] of Professor Wortley Axe’s comprehensive work is now before us, and we may say at once that its contents maintain in every respect the high promise of its forerunner. Section III., dealing with the “Varieties of the Horse,” begun in the first volume, is completed, the majority of our breeds of ponies, the heavy horses and the foreign breeds most frequently imported being reviewed. The author regards the good representative Welsh pony as “one of the best and most serviceable animals” among his kind. It is unfortunately true that the Dartmoor, Exmoor and New Forest breeds, more especially the second, have been made the subject of so many experiments in crossing that the original type is become obscured, if not entirely lost. Sir Walter Gilbey has set out the history, or as much of it as can be discovered by assiduous and careful research, of our native breeds of ponies in one of his well-known books; and Professor Wortley Axe’s observations form a very able summary of all that has been written of the several breeds. The historical sketch of the Shire horse is also excellent; as regards the debated question of “feather” on the legs of the breed, the author urges that the desirability or the reverse of hair in quantity is a matter which should be left to practical men who are not likely to allow sentimental considerations to weigh with them. The author is not able to throw any fresh light on the origin of the Clydesdale; it would be surprising if he had, in view of the researches which have been undertaken with the object of elucidating the matter; what is known he epitomises with his usual conciseness and point. The Suffolk breed is hardly more satisfactory as an historical subject; it was certainly well-established in the earlier decade of the eighteenth century, and, without the possibility of doubt, was so at a much more remote date. The author is a warm admirer of the Suffolk, whose good qualities furnish him with the theme for one of his best chapters.

The Arab naturally leads the way among the foreign breeds noticed. The author adopts a judicial attitude concerning the merits of the breed; he appears to share the opinion of those who think the Arab susceptible of improvement, while he recognises the intrinsic qualities which render an Arab so valuable for crossing with our own light horses.

The greater portion of the volume is occupied by the veterinary chapters: those matters of which the reader must acquire knowledge as a condition of understanding the descriptions of symptoms, &c., which follow. We have, always in simple and lucid language to be understanded of the layman, most valuable and helpful chapters on the diseases to which the mouth, throat, stomach and intestines of the horse are liable. The descriptions are supplemented by excellent drawings, which cannot fail to be of service to the reader.

The illustrations, in colour or from photographs, are exceedingly good.

From the first part of “The Horse: Its Treatment in Health and Disease,” the following is quoted:—

THE HEAD AS A UNIT OF MEASUREMENT.

Ever since the days of Bourgelat the study of proportions in respect to the various regions of the horse has been vigorously pursued, especially by French hippotomists, and it is to the founder of veterinary schools we owe the first serious attempt to “establish the relation of the dimension which should exist between the parts of the body,” or, in other words, a law of proportion. As a result of numerous measurements, Bourgelat selected the head as a basis of proportion for all other parts, and the more recent researches of the distinguished _savant_, Colonel Duhousset, led him also to adopt this, and give it as a unit of measure.

The results of his observations are recorded by Goubaux and Barrier, from whose able work on “The Exterior of the Horse,” we extract the following list of proportions:—

_The length of the head almost exactly equals the distance_—

1st.—From the back to the abdomen N O, fig. 73 (thickness of the body).

2nd.—From the top of the withers to the point of the arm H E (shoulder.)

3rd.—From the superior fold of the stifle joint to the point of the hock J J.

4th.—From the point of the hock to the ground J K.

5th.—From the dorsal angle of the scapula to the point of the haunch D D.

6th.—From the xiphoid region to the fetlock joint M I; above this latter in large horses and race horses, below it in small horses and in those of medium size.

7th.—From the superior fold of the stifle joint to the summit of the croup in subjects whose coxofemoral angle is large; this distance is always less in other cases (G and B).

_Two and one-half times the head gives_—

1st.—The height of the withers H, above the ground.

2nd.—The height of the top of the croup above the ground.

3rd.—Very often the length of the body from the point of the arm to that of the buttock, E F.

The length of the croup from the point of the haunch to that of the buttock D F is always less than that of the head; this varies from 5 to 10 centimetres. As to its width from one haunch to another, it often exceeds only very little its length (often it is equal to the latter), G and B.

The croup, D F, exists quite accurately in length four times in the same horse.

1st.—From the point of the buttock to the inferior part of the stifle joint F P.

2nd.—In the width of the neck at its inferior attachment, from its insertion into the chest to the origin of the withers S X.

3rd.—From the insertion of the neck into the chest to the angle of the lower jaw X Q, when the head is held parallel to the shoulder.

4th.—Finally, from the nape of the neck to the nostril _n n_ or to the commissure of the lips.

The measure of one half of the head will also guide us very much in the construction of the horse, when we know that it is frequently applied to several of his parts, namely:—

1st.—From the most prominent point of the angle of the lower jaw to the anterior profile of the forehead before the eye, R Q (thickness of the head).