The last race run over the old course, when the start was more down the Warren way, was in 1847, when Templeman, on Mr. Pedley's The Cossack, won right through, and Cossack was one of the very neatest and most bloodlike horses we ever saw; still, too, retaining all his good looks, as the latest advices from France report. Another particularly handsome horse, as he went up in his canter, was Kingston, who, however, did not win the Derby, although afterwards of accredited value both on the turf and at the stud. Ellington and Kettledrum, on the contrary, were no beauties, and one of the veriest wretches we ever saw stripped was Mr. Mytton's Black Prince, a son of the renowned Touchstone, and almost equally renowed Queen of Trumps, the only mare, up to last season, that ever won the Oaks and St. Leger. But the Oaks at Epsom is often a lottery, and carries little of that proof with it traceable to the Derby; the fact being that fillies, as a rule. run far better in the autumn than in the spring. Nevertheless, one of the fastest Derby's ever run was won by a mare, Blink Bonny, in 2 min. 45 sec., while Kettledrum, Blair Athol, and Blue Gown did the mile-and-a-half in somewhere about 2 min. 43 sec., the average time being about 2 min. 50 sec. But it is questionable whether the time is always correctly taken, and, as a test of ability it is of little or no worth whatever. Many a farmer before now has trained "a nag" for a hunters' stake to go, by his watch, something like a mile in a minute! It is only of late years that the time of the Derby has come to be regularly recorded, so that even such a comparison cannot be drawn between the present and the past. Were we asked, however, to name the best horse that ever won a Derby, or, in other words, the best horse that ever ran, we should be inclined to say this was Mr. Batson's Plenipotentiary, the hero of 1834. Certainly, one of the very best colts Lord Jersey ever brought out was Glencoe-whose blood is now amongst the most fashionable, alike in England and America-who won the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes and the Goodwood Cup of the same year, and yet Glencoe could never make Plenipotentiary gallop! Plenipotentiary was a horse of extraordinary power and substance, but withal very blood-like, and with beautiful action. Up to the St. Leger he was never really extended; but at Doncaster some scoundrel contrived to give him a fearfully strong dose of poison, from which even the constitution of Plenipotentiary never recovered. As an eye-witness assures us, he reeled back from the course like a drunken man, and lay on his side in terrible agony in his box. Bay Middleton was another "great" horse; but chesnut Middleton, with whom in our youth we lived for a time almost in "the same house," never started but once in his life, and that was for the Derby; and Amato was as content with this one brilliant appearance. Of very different stamina is Blue Gown, the winner of the last Derby, who, as both a two and a three-year old, was running the season through, at all weights and distances, and who, within a fortnight of winning the Derby, won the Cup at Ascot; the only horse who ever carried off the great three-year-old stake and the great all-aged race in the same year. Sir Joseph Hawley has now won the Derby four times-in 1851 with that narrow, high, but rattling goer, Teddington; in 1858 with Beadsman, a son of Mendicant, herself a winner of the Oaks, and the most elegant mare we ever saw stripped; in the year following, 1859, with Musjid; and in 1868 with Blue Gown, a son of Beadsman. Indeed, Sir Joseph threatens to equal the Egremont feat, for Pero Gomez, another son of Beadsman, is now first favourite for the Derby. The black jacket of Mr. Bowes has also been first home four times; but Mr. Bowes scarcely deserves his success, for he lives altogether in Paris, and is seldom at "the trouble" of coming over to see his horses run. Mundig, as we have said, was his first winner in 1835; Cotherstone, who for power and "furnishing" quite realised Nimrod's notion of "the three-year old colts looking like six-year-old horses, with the bloom of condition on their coats," in 1843; Daniel O'Rourke, a little cob horse, in 1852, on about the dampest day we ever were out in, barring always Blair Athol's Leger; and that really beautiful rendering of a race-horse, West Australian, in the very next year again, 1853. But John Scott's hand would seem since to have lost its cunning; and Mr. Merry, who won once in 1860 with Thormanby, Sir Joseph Hawley, the Dawsons, and the Frenchmen, have more recently supplied a very world of speculators with Derby cracks. And the race was never more popular, although it is of course a mighty silly thing even to tamper with its renown, or to induce people to talk of going elsewhere. Still, everybody is with the Derby and Epsom at heart. There is such ample room for the million to disport itself, and the day offers altogether such a pleasant outing, if the glories of the road be almost gone. Writing just two hundred years since, that quaint old sinner Pepys says, "Having intended this day to go to Banstead Downs to see a famous race, I sent Will to get himself ready to go with me; but I hear it is put off, because the Lords do sit in Parliament to-day." Now, however, we put off Parliament, unless a very much reformed House should dare to rule it otherwise. THE PRETENDER; WINNER OF THE DERBY, 1869. ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY HARRY HALL. BY CASTOR. From this victory The Pretender reaped manifold and important advantages; his followers were armed, his party encouraged, and his enemies intimidated.-SMOLLETT'S "History of England." The Pretender, bred by Mr. W. Sadler in 1866, is by Adventurer out of Ferina, by Venison, her dam Partiality by Middleton-Favourite, by Blucher-Scheherazade, by Selim. Adventurer, bred by Mr. Gilby in 1859, is by Newminster out of Palma, by Emilius. As a race-horse Adventurer figures as one of the stoutest sons of Newminster, and in his great season as a fouryear-old he won in all but unbroken succession the Londesborough Plate at Doncaster in the Spring, the City and Suburban at Epsom, the Great Northern Handicap and the Flying Dutchman's Handicap at York, the Craven at Epsom Summer Meeting, and Her Majesty's Vase at Ascot. Adventurer went to the stud in 1865, and his stock consequently first came out in 1868 when he was credited with three winners-Sir F. Johnstone's Benefactor, Mr. Pryor's Misadventure, and The Pretender. He is located at the Sheffield Lane Paddocks, where his subscription at 40 gs. filled very early in the season. Ferina, bred by Mr. W. Ley in 1844, passed in turn into the possession of the late Mr. Greville and the late Lord Clifden. The mare never ran, and after throwing a dead colt foal to the Emperor in 1849 she was purchased at a low figure by Mr. William Sadler of Doncaster, with whom her account stands thus: 1850-F. (died a month old), by Bay | 1859-Mahala, by Rataplan (70) 1860-Tambour Major, by Rataplan (100) 1863-Missed to Bro. to Bird on Wing The figures in parenthesis give prices made as yearlings, the highest being for Hunting Horn, a horse of extraordinary substance, who, however, never ran, but who took the first prize as the best stallion for getting hunters at the Warwick Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and later on a similar premium at the Salisbury Meeting of the Bath and West of England Society, at one of which adjudications we had the honour of assisting. Up to Pretender's time Ferina's produce were to be distinguished on the turf by St. Hubert who ran such a terrific race with Lord of the Isles for the 2,000 gs. The old mare was shot at Doncaster on Tuesday, April 6th, the very day three weeks previous to her youngest child winning at Newmarket. Pretender is a brown horse standing sixteen hands high. He has a very expressive good head, tapering towards the nose, with a straight muscular neck and good shoulders. He has great depth of girth, but is slack behind the saddle and tucked up in his back ribs. His quarters are not very long but strong towards the lower part; while he has ragged hips, and is long from the stifle to the ground, standing with his hocks away behind him. He has not very powerful arms, but is short in his cannon bone, with his heels low to the ground. The Pretender is altogether a long-reaching horse, with great liberty, and a famous walker, although rather a scrambling goer, until fairly extended. At the sale of Mr. Sadler's yearlings at Doncaster in 1867 The Pretender was knocked down for 400 gs. to Mr. Tom Dawson for the Johnstone-Jardine interest and at once transferred to Middleham where he still continues. In 1868, as a two-year-old, The Pretender made his first appearance at Stockton, where, ridden by Cameron at 8st. 71b., he ran second to Mr. Johnstone's Lord Hawthorne, 8st. 5lb., for the Hardwicke Stakes-T.Y.C.-with Mr. S. Hobson's Dunbar, 8st. 2lb., third; Mr. Jackson's Duchess of Athol, 7 st. 12lb., fourth; and the following not placed Mr. Bow's Fecialis, 8st. 10lb.; Mr. T. Boyce's The Gowan, 7st. 12lb.; Mr. J. Johnstone's Thirlestane, 8st. 5lb.; Mr. |