Hambletonian. As to the starters, few of them would live at the same pace from the starting post of the Beacon to half across the Flat. I may very possibly be wrong in such opinion; but if I am not, large stakes have not produced a better sort of horse. Handicaps certainly produce a large field, a great deal of betting, and a great deal of fun for the gazers, and of course also for those who win; but so far from inducing a man to get good horses, they encourage him to get and keep bad ones; and in fact, if all races were handicaps, a man would be an idot to keep any other, for if the bad one has not as fair a chance of winning as the good one, it is not a fair race. In such case handicapping would be not only a farce, but a take in. A few handicaps that a man may run for or not, as he likes, can do no great harm, we will allow; but as they are no encouragers to the owners of good horses, the becoming general would certainly be injurious. It may be said that if a man has, with a good horse, won some twoyears' old, three-years' old, and weight for age stakes, that he can afford. to lose a handicap. Granted he can. And a few modified handicaps might be all well enough to give second, third, or if you please, fourthrate horses a chance for a good thing, no one would grumble at that; but to see an aged horse and a three-years' old, each running under 5 st. 12 lbs. or 6 st. is monstrous; so is seeing one three-years' old carrying 6 st. 12 lbs. and another the nominal weight of 4 st.-thirty-five pounds difference. A wretch that requires such allowance ought not to live; much less, should he run, or be allowed even a chance of carrying off a heavy stake. The two owners are not in the same position-true, each has paid his entrance; but independent of this sum, one has paid for his horse, perhaps forty times the sum the other has (for such disparity does often exist in the price of two horses in the same race)-the one risks the breaking down a valuable animal; the other, one that if his neck was broke, so much the better. It is, in point of risk, two thousand to fifty. All these wretches brought in enables a book to be made, we know, but racing was not intended for such purposes, though it is now the chief purpose to which it is put. No man would object to the Hero giving a horse of his year a weight that would bring them together; and if seven, or even fourteen pounds— enormous as the difference of weight would be--still the one requiring such allowance might be a fair horse. So let him go and win if he can. Now, if handicaps were limited, as to the weight permitted to be allowed, in consideration of qualification, and, of course, age, we should he keeping, to a great degree, horses of something like the same class together; and whether it was the Hero or St. Lawrence, they are both nags deserving the winning a first-class stake. Though they would have wanted handicapping to bring them together, and, in fact, every one would be pleased to see the old veteran successful, from respect of his performances; but to have a creature good for nothing at best, but made to appear still worse than its natural pretensions were, by purposely losing a race or two, to cut "well in " for a large handicap; and with a feather beating a first-rate horse, is, I must maintain, putting the owner of the latter in a situation that he ought not to be placed in, for, as I have before stated, if such wretches have not a chance of winning, handicapping is a farce. We might, to carry on the fun, and increase the fun, admit jackasses in the same race-and very funny it would be. It may be Jack and the Hero together. said with truth that no weight could bring That difficulty might be casily overcome. of a mile and a half given; that, with weight enough on the horse, might produce a race, and be a lift to the fielders' book, too. It would only be adding a new feature to absurdity. Now, in order to produce horses for handicaps, there could be no objection if we made one for a certain class of horse, to also have handicaps for as great wretches as people may please to patronize, but let the latter go for something like saddles and bridles. If a man chose to run a positive wretch of the same age as the Hero, or any other given horse, receiving fourteen pounds, let him; then, as I stated was said, "the more the merrier;" but we should find owners of such apologies for race-horses quite wide awake enough to their own interest to put their horses in a class where they had a chance, for none would I give them for stakes their horses have no right to contend for. What harm would such an innovation on the present handicapping system do? Suppose under the present one, twenty-five horses start, and the take up is we will say a thousand. Suppose by diminishing numbers we bring it to five hundred, without the chance of a lot all but turned loose, as to weight, winning it. Five hundred won is better than a thousand lost, and that in an ignominious way. The excluded lot would run in their own handicap; thus we should even increase sport and do justice where justice is due. Far be it from me to attempt to point out how something like what I suggest might be carried out; I merely give crude ideas, that if properly modified, would be advisable to adopt. There are plenty quite adequate to the task of carrying them into effect. Every lover of racing must rejoice in seeing that, mirabile dictu, we have this year had an honest Derby and St. Leger-no doubt the best horse in the race won. This result did not arise solely from the Dutchman being the fastest horse, but from his noble owner being one who it was known would not be tampered with, and the vigilance with which the horse was watched reflected the highest credit on all concerned in him he was, moreover, ridden by an honest jockey, and one that many of my friends can vouch I pointed out some years since as one quite out of his place in merely riding at provincial meetings. I ever maintained he was one of the best finishers of a race in England, and on Old King Cole I have seen him win a race out of the fire (if I may use the expression) when not one jockey in a hundred could have done it. May his present noble employer go on and win, and may Charles Marlow go on and ride till he gets rich, for well he deserves it! By the late lull in affairs of rascality, we may hope that a better feeling is beginning as regards racing: if it is so, it is more than well. I will not be the raven to croak, but let us recollect that want of opportunity to rob keeps men honest, and if alarm has been too far created, it may be judicious to let a time elapse before fresh cause is given for suspicion; but if to make amends for this we do not find, when least expected, the pot is put on again, I shall be most agreeably surprised, and shall begin to hope that the true patrons of racing may again be seen, like their horses, at the post. H. H. SARAH BATE AND SEDLITZ, THE PROPERTY OF J. H. PARKINSON, ESQ. ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY W. BARRAUD. With the turn of the year and the commencement of the coursing season "we take the opportunity" of introducing portraits of two wellbred, good-looking, and hard-working longtails from the kennel of a sportsman of some renown and proportionate success at the different meetings he sends on to. In support of either of these propositions, the excellence of the dogs, or the good judgment of their owner, we cannot do better than offer the following particulars to our readers, already offered to ourselves as the wherewithal for allowing them a place in the magazine. The remarkably handsome lengthy bitch in the foreground, Sarah Bate, takes her name from her breeder, the well-known Mr. Bate, of Manchester, being got by his celebrated dog Sandy out of his Marigold, sister to Manfred, the mother coming from Lord Talbot's kennel. The career of this bitch was unfortunately neither equal to the promise of her appearance nor her real worth. Her principal performance, however, proved the stuff that was in her, having in 1845 beaten Captain Daintree's noted Killena in a match for a hundred over Newmarket, much to the surprise of the many, who, with good reason, relied on the previous great doings of her opponent. In addition to this, Sarah Bate figures as the winner of a Puppy Stake in 1844, but her triumphs extend no farther. She was considered a very fast and close runner, but hardly equal to the running off a heavy entry, always showing to most advantage in her first day's courses. Her companion, Sedlitz, altogether a very extraordinary animal, is by Wiltshire Marquis out of Mr. Powney's Fly. In October, 1845, as "Fan," she ran up to Pilgrim for the Great Champion Puppy Cup at Amesbury, and in the December following she won the Champion Puppy Cup at Newmarket, taking her revenge on Pilgrim, whom she beat in her second course. Previous to their first meeting Sedlitz had a violent attack of rheumatic fever, which returned upon her after running at Newmarket; so severe, indeed, was it in its effects, that for many weeks the bitch had to be lifted on and off her bed. Nothwithstanding, however, she recovered her general health, though subject to occasional lameness in one of her hind legs. In 1847 we find her renewing her interrupted career, and, amongst other triumphs, in January dividing the Deptford all-aged Stakes with Mr. Etwall's Waterfall, and in March, at Amesbury, winning the first sixteen dog stake for the Great Wiltshire Coursing Picture; her own brother, Smuggler Bill, winning the second. Mr. Parkinson thus held two of the four winners which were left in; but strange to say, with the odds much in his favour, neither remained for the deciding course. The defeat of Sedlitz is in a great measure ac |