If there must be pugilism, let the prizefighter have his place, and the patron of the prize ring, his. I can see no reason why there should be a repetition of such passages in turf practice as Running Rein's victory for the Derby, or Leander's death for ditto; therefore let the member of the turf qualify for appearing upon it as men do for other class purposes. If there must be professional betting-for which, however, I have never yet been able to discover the occasion-let the "leg" have his place, and the amateur of the betting ring his. Forgive, blest spirit of Von Humboldt, this allusion to a sporting Cosmos! Such, nevertheless, would be the effect, in a great measure, of the promotion of a system of associations, chosen by the usual method adopted in all such social unions, having reference to our national sports. It would "hold as it were the mirror up to"-manliness and mirth. We should know, at least, what manner of men they were whose prowess or promise we put our trust in. Should the effort be made to establish clubs in connection with the turf, after the example set by the supporters of yacht sailing, most earnestly do I say to the well-wisher of racing as the sport of a gentleman "Illis Accedas socius." THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. WINNER OF THE DERBY, 1849. ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY HArry Hall. The Flying Dutchman, bred by the late Mr. Vansittart in 1846, was got by Bay Middleton, out of Barbelle, by Sandbeck, her dam Daridetta, by Amadis out of Selima, by Selim-Pot-8-o's-Editha, by Herod. Bay Middleton, bred by Lord Jersey in 1833, is by Sultan, out of Cobweb, by Phantom. He was the best race-horse of his day, winning the Derby; and never, in fact, having been beaten. As a stud horse he did not so quickly confirm the expectations entertained of him ; for from the picked mares of the country, the Flying Dutchman is now the first great winner of his get. In the next degree, however, his stock include the names of many good runners, as Aristides, Gaper, Allround-my-Hat, Cowl, Marquisè, Princess, Alice, Ennui, Planet, Tiresome, and Honeycomb. It will be remembered that Bay Middleton was purchased of Lord Jersey, by the late lamented Lord George Bentinck, for four thousand guineas. After the transfer of the stud to Mr. Mostyn, he was weeded out of it, and is now in possession of the Honourable Sidney Herbert. Barbelle, bred by Mr. Vansittart in 1836, may now, perhaps, rank as the best brood mare in England, being also the dam of Lord Eglinton's other crack, Van Tromp. Barbelle, too, was a very fair runner in her time, which did not however extend to any great length, the mare being put to the stud at the close of her three-year-old performances. The Flying Dutchman is a dark brown horse, with no white about him beyond the saddle-marks; he stands about fifteen hands three inches high; has a lean head, with rather a Roman nose, full fiery eye, prominent forehead, and ears carried a little back. He has a strong neck, a little bowed; fine deep shoulders; good girth-measuring five feet six inches-round shaped barrel; powerful back, rising a little on the rump; very strong quarters, well let down; with a light, thin, meanishlooking tail. He has good thighs, immense arms, and very large bone. He stands a little over at the knee, but is altogether a magnificent specimen of the power in a race-horse, though he may never quite equal the grand perfect form of his half brother. PERFORMANCES. In 1848, at Newmarket July Meeting, the Flying Dutchman first appeared; when, ridden by Marlow, he won the July Stakes of 50 sovs. each, New T.Y.C., beating Colonel Peel's sister to Iodine (2), Mr. Gully's The Jester (3), and the following not placed :-Lord Exeter's Turban, Sir J. Hawley's Touchy, Mr. Stephenson's Canadian, Mr. R. Boyce's Francesca, and Mr. Watts' Oquetos. 7 to 4 on the Flying Dutchman. Won by a length. At the same meeting, ridden by Marlow, he won a Sweepstakes of 100 sovs. each, new T.Y.C., beating Colonel Peel's Cracow (2), and Lord Chesterfield's Chicot. 7 to 2 on the Flying Dutchman. Won by a length. At Liverpool July Meeting, ridden by Marlow, he won a Sweepstakes of 200 sovs. each, T.Y.C., beating Lord Stanley's Escalade (2), Lord Glasgow's f. by Lanercost, out of Canada (3), and Mr. Johnstone's c. by Lanercost, out of Rowena's dam. 7 to 2 on the Flying DutchWon by a length and a half. man. At Doncaster, ridden by Marlow, he won the Champagne Stakes of 50 sovs. each, Red House in, beating Lord Zetland's Ellen Middleton (2), Mr. B. Green's Cigarette (3), Colonel Anson's Raillery (4), and Mr. Bell's Imperatrix. 3 to 1 on the Flying Dutchman. Won by a length. At the same meeting, ridden by Marlow, he won the Two-year-old Stakes of 20 sovs. each, T.Y.C., beating Mr. B. Green's Garrick (2), Mr. Bell's Velox (3); and Mr. Meiklam's Raby. 6 to 1 on the Flying Dutchman. Won in a canter. In 1849, at Epsom, ridden by Marlow, The Flying Dutchman won the Derby Stakes of 50 sovs. each, a mile and a-half, beating Mr. Godwin's Hotspur (2), Colonel Peel's Tadmor (3), Lord Clifden's Honeycomb (4), and the following not placed :-Mr. Bowes's The Knout, Mr. A. Nicholl's Nunny Kirk, Lord Stanley's Uriel, Sir C. Monck's Vanguard, Mr. H. Hill's Henry of Exeter, Mr. Jaques's Chantrey, Lord Bateman's Goodwood, Mr. Burgess's The Crowner, Mr. Farrance's The Old Fox, Sir C. Cockerell's Thiebault, Lord Eglinton's Elthiron, Lord Exeter's Glenalvon, Mr. Campbell's Robert de Brus; Duke of Rutland's c. by Charles XII. out of Flambeau's dam, Mr. Watts's Chatterer, Mr. B. Green's Westow; Sir J. Hawley's Vatican, Sir G. Heathcote's Companion, Mr. Pedley's Old Dan Tucker, Mr. Disney's Montague, Mr. Gratwicke's Landgrave, and Mr. Nicholl's Woolwich. 2 to 1 against The Flying Dutchman. Won by half a length. SUMMARY OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN'S PERFORMANCES. In 1848 he started five times and won five :— The July Stakes, at Newmarket, value clear.. £1,110 A Sweepstakes at Liverpool.... 400 1,200 825 The Two-year-old Stakes, at Doncaster 560 The Champagne Stakes, at Doncaster.... In 1849 he has started once and won once :- 6,320 Total.................. 10,415 The Flying Dutchman's present engagements are in a sweepstakes of 200 sovs. each, the Bickerstaffe Stakes, and the St. Leger, at Liverpool; in a sweepstakes of 200 sovs. each at Goodwood; in the St. Leger and the Foal Stakes at Doncaster; in a match for a thousand, giving three pounds, with Honeycomb, at Newmarket Second October Meeting; and in the Belvoir Stakes, Newmarket Houghton Meeting. In 1850 he is engaged in the Great Four-year-old Stakes at Goodwood. In none of these does there appear to be anything as yet to make a race with him, save and excepting always the Great St. Leger, which they are now backing him at evens to win. Karely as Fortune distributes her favours with a becoming sense of merit, as rarely did she ever smile on a more deserving claimant for them than the noble owner of the Flying Dutchman. One of the most honourable and straightforward men on the turf, we are happy to add he has been one of the most successful. In some measure we really believe the public almost recognize his lordship's triumphs as their own, for it is with such a feeling of confidence they ever know they can back the tartan jacket. Another good word must be given for the care and ability with which the Leger and Derby. winners have been brought out by Fobert, and the honesty and judgment-as he has eminently displayed in some of his last encounters-with which the sons of Barbelle are ridden by Charles Marlow; a fine horseman, who until very lately was allowed to make his great effects on the Alderman's middling wares, and his performances confined to outriding lads and novices on country courses. HUNTING AND THE MILLION. THE FLYING BRIGHTON. Everything now-a-days is flying; and Mr. Hudson's locomotive, Mr. Green's monster balloon, and the American trotters brought to this country, all conduce to keep alive, if not as yet the perpetual, at least the accelerated motion. No doubt this is all for the best, for they tell us all things permitted by Providence are so, or at least in some way work to a general good. I leave abler casuists than I to decide this point; but, at all events, in the year 1817, when I first saw the Brighton harriers, they were, in comparison with the old Leatherhead bluemottles of ever-to-be-respected memory, quite on a par with the express train, or if compared with the old Bristol Blue, on the box of which I once-and, thank God, only once-heroically kept my seat for seventeen mortal hours, the only redeeming points in the journey being that I worked" over about five stages of the ground, where I got as many teams, that promised, in reward of sheer labour, on my part, to get over about six and a-half miles an hour, and when, in aid of sundry feats of coachmanship, the passengers were treated with a rural walk of a mile 66 through the certainly beautiful but somewhat tedious acclivity leading through the forest to the top of the hill that brought you, all parts of harness and coach holding together, to the good town of Marlborough ; not to the castle so celebrated as being the resort of aristocracy, and loving couples, who explored its famed labyrinth, a portentous prelude to finding their way out of the labyrinth of uncertainty into which the two simple words "I will," but to a very comfortable hostelrie, about midway of the town, where the said Blue deposited and took up passengers, some congratulating themselves in finding comforters in the mein of fond wives to welcome them home, others in placing their comforters (not their wives) round their necks, to face the somewhat bleak stage to Calne, this said stage being a matter of no small import to those who travelled with ordinary journeying appliances, but braved heroically by those who, like myself, know enough of the Bath road to have stowed beneath their waistbands, a pint and a-half of a never-to-be-forgotten compound of malt and hops manufactured at the White Hart, at Kennett. All hail thee, unpretending as thy appearance was, thou White Hart! for thou hast sent more joyous and happy hearts from thy humble portals than can boast any crowned head in this or any other empire. True, the soul-inspiring influence of thy ale might, after a time, evaporate; where is the temporary bliss that does not? And if we are told by such writers as those with whom I, a sinful sinner, dare boast no kith or kin, that "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," he must be presumptuous indeed who blames him or the act that renders man happy for the time. But I never heard of any evil thereof arising from a participation in the good provided at the White Hart, unless it was from not taking enough of the sparkling beverage provided by its host, or from some enthusiastic youth becoming a little too susceptible of the sparkling orbs of the neat Ganymede appointed to minister there to our wants. Though, so far as I ever found, too coy to meet our wishes. Show me the man that can remember the one or the other without heaving a fond sigh to bygone days, and I proclaim him fit for treason, treachery, and plots. But to return to the Brighton harriers. Whether they were fast from their breeding, their kind of country, from having stout hares constantly before them, from scent usually lying high, from being rattled along by a fast huntsman to meet the wishes of as fast and aristocratic a set of patrons as ever followed a pack beneath the style of foxhounds I believe it will be ceded to me that more determined sportsmen and riders patronized the Brighton than could be produced or boasted of as following any other pack pursuing the same game. This is easily accounted for. Royalty at that time patronized Brighton; and though its frequenters were then as one to ten in point of numbers to what they now are, and though the succession of half-palaces that now rise there to our view were not even contemplated, still Brighton was not the place to which tradesmen, their clerks or travellers, dreamt of sending their families; the élite of fashion and the military formed the number of those who frequented the stone as pedestrians, the rides and drives in carriages or on horseback. The frequenters of Brighton and those of Margate were as different as those of Spitalfields, or, to look higher, Finsbury were, and are, to the denizens of Belgravesquare or Kensington-gore. At a meet at the Devil's Dyke, the class of men assembled partook somewhat of a Melton caste; here was seldom seen a country-looking squire with a kind of dreadnaught hunting-frock, or a good sort of half-bred strong hunter with a coat an inch long. The pace would not do for this: here all looked spicy and fit to go; and here, though only to meet harriers, the nearly or quite thorough-bred clipper found at times the persuaders at his sides to keep him at that of the Brighton flyers, with whom I think I have gone as fast as ever I did with the most crack pack of fox-hounds. Perhaps this struck a blow at the root of hare-hunting; for, though we must allow that coursing virtually it was, still a breathing over four miles of such a country with such a pack made men sadly impatient when destined to see a closer hunting-harrier working through a field of turnips fetlock-deep in stiff clay; out of which, should the fence not be practicable, and the rider be obliged to dismount to enjoy that delectable treat of "turning his horse over," he finds a pretty accumulation of adhesive matter on his boots, that induces him to half wish himself in Oxford-street, to avail himself of the convenience of a scraper. Such little circumstances mattered little where and when the squire himself had his boots made by a village Crispin, and when nothing like a polish was expected on a pair of new ones till "the oil had got out of the leather a bit," which was promised would be the case in a month or so. But a fast bootmaker contemplates no "turning over" with his customers, with whom a turn over is only thought of as synonymous with a "burster," where man and nag turn over together; and really, as a matter of prudence, setting all enthusiasm or a wish to be thought to "go well" aside, it matters little whether we risk a bruise, or even a broken bone, Ly riding at a suspicious place, or whether we encounter the greater certainty of a severe cold from sopped feet. It thus appears where " fast" is the talismanic watchword that everything and every man lends his aid towards keeping up the pace, and even fast boots contribute to the same end and aim. What was the consequence? the young farmer who got a sight of the Brighton turn-out soon sported white-tops and faultless white-cords or leathers. The squire's heir, who piqued himself on not "dangling after the women," by whom he was too great a bear probably to be tolerated, somehow got an invite to the mess of the Tenth ; got also a hint how to lose his money in the evening, learnt the taste of Regent punch, and found that a broiled bone, of which his good father would spurn the very name, was, and is, by no means as economical a finale, when all its appliances and consequences are entered into, as the good folks at the Manor-house might suppose. No matter, he has got his first insight into "life," and would certainly abstain from boasting of his superiority at quoits at the next mess-table he might be invited to; he has, moreover, picked up a few favourite phrases to be used on all occasions, applicable or not; swears that the divine creature who he has twice seen in a pas seul is exquisite; astounds the good girls, his sisters, by calling the divine" by her most pet name; and horrifies the whole family by voting his grandmother or aunt d old bores. Has been recommended by his friend captain some-one to his tailor, or pro tempore tailor, and bootmaker; has, like a gentleman, ordered a few things by the half dozen; has lent what cash he could command to his friend the Honourable Tom Somebody, with whom he got as free in two days as a man of the world and a gentleman would in two years. The honourable took quite a fancy to our youngster, and even bought his best hunter of him, the young squire having been quite 66 |