2 r 6 56 2 h. m. h. m. h. m. 5a32 2 26 2 46 3 6 25 3 6 3 26 r 6 59 4 7 28 3 47 48 8 39 4 30 5 54 Twenty-fourth Sun. af. Trin. s 4 30 3M Swaffham Fair. 4 T WORCESTER RACES. 5 W TARPORLEY HUNT RACES. 6 T SOUTH LANCASHIRE COURS. M. 7 F Tweed rod-fishing ends. 8 S LORD MAYOR'S DAY. s 4 26 5 r 7 3 6 9 54 5 18 5 44 s 4 23 711 10 6 11 6 41 7 14 7 49 8 26 9 7 9Twenty-fifth Sun. af. Trinity.r 7 10 10 1 41 9 4610 23 s 4 1611 2 5611 011 30 10M MORPETH COURS. MEET. 11 T Half-quarter Day. Wakefield F,r 7 1412 4 811 59 12 W HASLINGTON COURSING MEETG.S 4 1313 5 19 0 25 0 48 13 T Loughborough & Wilton Fairs. r 7 17 14 14 FYork Fair. NEWRY STEEPLE C.S 4 11 F 15 S Ottley Fair, 7 58 8 33 7 9 41 16 Twenty-sixth Sun. af. Trin. 23 Twenty-seventh Sun. af. Trin.r 7 3424 0 16 24 M Chester Fair. Carrickmacross ........ 4 & 6 Lucan................ 19 & 20 | Newport Pagnel COURSING MEETINGS IN NOVEMBER. 1 | Morpeth 4 Haslington.. .....4 & 5 Morpeth.............. 13 & 14 Barton-on-Humber....4, 5 & 7 Malleny. ...... 13 & 14 Midlothian Newcastle.... 6 & 7 Union (Southport) .... 13 & 14 Morpeth (Bothal).....27 & 28 NEWMARKET FIRST AND SECOND OCTOBER MEETINGS. BY CRAVEN. There cannot be a question but that the last two or three years have done a great deal in the way of improving the method and management of English racing; but has our breed of race-horses advanced pari passu; or has it positively retrograded? The autumn of 1845 saw our turf with but a couple of public horses that could get a couple of miles in anything like form, and presently one of them is shipped for Ireland, to pick up a few more of Her Majesty's hundreds. Some notion of our Tunbridge-ware stock of platers may be formed from the winning of the Queen's Plate, in the First October week, by Boarding-School Miss, carrying ten stone seven pounds, that for the Cesarewitch, carrying four stone less, was not able to live the pace at which it was run. Then, if you happen to see a three-year-old, or the like, doing something that has the semblance of a good performance, examine further, and you find the subsequent in-and-out running in no wise to be accounted for, except that the winning was a mistake or a slice of luck. Look at the Derby-its first and second; the Oaks, and its winner; and the style of Miss Elis's achievements at Goodwood. What conclusion can we arrive at from such data, but that the racing stock of the present season, at all events, has been a very unflattering average? The Derby was no race at all, but rather a game of nine-pins; and the pace of the Leger and Parkhill tells what sort of an affair the former was. The Great Handicap of the Second October-as the Cesarewitch is called-was done at most moderate speed, without a shadow of pretension to class with the form in which we have been accustomed to see races come off over the Newmarket flat. The Baron is the best horse of his year. John Scott, however, brought him to the post without any idea of his being good enough to win a St. Leger. Was he in any such doubt about Don John? Suppose them to be brought together at the same age and weight, could The Baron beat the Don over the St. Leger course, receiving half a distance? I think not. The year 1845 will go down to posterity remarkable for its bad crop of potatoes and threeyear-old racers; but that is no reason we should despair of having next season as choice samples of murphies and blood-stock as ever. These failures are probably periodical in all life, whether it runs, or swims, or flies, or vegetates; and who shall say it is an unmeet dispensation? Should we know the blessing of a healthy ventricle if we had never experienced the presence of colic? The First October Meeting this year commenced on Tuesday, September the 30th. It was put on the scene with considerable spirit and éclat, and in the indispensable of weather had nothing to complain of. There was a very excellent attendance, and something quite extraordinary at Newmarket-an attempt to introduce those improvements in the economy of the turf elsewhere generally adopted. At the weighing-house and the various betting-posts are now to be seen racing telegraphs in full work, whereby the speculative may know what steeds-or, rather, what riders are weighed for the respective races on which they are about to wager their coin. These might, indeed, be more sightly, for, when not in operation, they look awfully like gibbets; but it behoves us to be thankful for any change that does good, however ungracefully. The three days' sport opened with the Trial Stakes, won by Old Oakley, ridden by H. Bell. One was not prepared to see Robinson out of a ride which would have suited his weight much better than it did Bell's. I suppose the maestro was not quite well enough to get up. The first of the Twoyear-old Stakes, which belong intrinsically to the meeting--the Hopeful-was won by a filly that was never thought of, albeit she had won herself a claim to notice. Madcap is in the Oaks; but no one bets about the Oaks now till the Derby is over: still, with the spread of betting, we need not despair of presently seeing books opened for the Oaks before Christmas. The result of the Grand Duke Michael seemed to settle the question of Idas having been poisoned at Epsom. He can't stay over a mile: that is the history of his winning one race cleverly, and being beaten to sticks for another. The Buckingham Stakes, they say, Wits-end ought to have won, had the jockey not been hampered with too much lead. Samphire pulled through probably by Nat's good judgment and well-trained physique-but one cannot wonder at poor old Day putting up his son. Perhaps, poor fellow, the heaviness of his domestic affliction made him overlook the weight his boy would have to carry about his person. The sport on Wednesday was without a feature of interest, save the victory of Lord Lonsdale's Turquoise colt-the vanquisher of Idas the previous day -over the winner of the Oaks. No doubt he is a smart, honest animal; but unless he be very good, how indifferent his running makes that of the ruck of the three-year-olds! We had more materiel on Thursday, though nothing much better in way of account. Green Pea won the Rutland by a head and good riding: the Goodwood stable keeps throwing in, as the hazard gentlemen say, and must go near paying its way this year. Idas to-day won a sweepstakes-the Cambridgeshire course; but the tackle against him was far from flying rigging. Then, over the Round Course Boarding-School Miss beat a lot of rubbish for the Queen's Plate, and forthwith found favour with that remarkable gobe-mouche, our public, for the Cesarewitch. This put her on equal terms-with what result will be seen in the notice of THE SECOND OCTOBER MEETING.-This affair was heralded by sundry announcements in the Sheet Racing Calendar, that on the second day a general meeting of the Jockey Club would take place; and people actually thought that the parliament of the turf was going to legislate in earnest for its behoof. Never did any human institution so groan for reform-so cry aloud for protection, as the system of modern Olympus. The accouchement, however, ended in the appearance of a very unexpected mouse: the object of the general assembly being to offer compliments to the Duke of Richmond and Lord Palmerston, for their sporting exertions in the Houses of Lords and Commons; and a sort of insinuation that in future practical operations in chivalry at Newmarket would be a monopoly for hired servants. The appearance of the late meteor in the north-the racing aurora borealis-the youthful scion of the house of Clifton-seemed to rouse the amateurs of the cap and jacket to be up and at it: as Shakspeare has it And the calendars overflowed with announcements of matches between gallant captains, honourable gentlemen, and the like-to the affrighting of the Club for the character of the Heath....! Certainly the noble peers who fought so obstinate a fight for "The Wagers Bill" deserved the vote of gratitude accorded them right well; but it would have been more cordially responded to-out of doors-had it appeared in a bulletin, coupled with some slight nostrum for the epi demic under which the patients of the ring are suffering. There were, indeed, a brace of other topics grafted upon it, one of which was that the Jockey Club would countenance a railway in the vicinity of Newmarket; the other, that they repudiated the idea of erecting stands upon the race-course, submitted upon public grounds for their consideration by an architect who had taken the trouble of drawing the plans after which he proposed they should be built-by himself. As scarcely two races are ever run over the same course consecutively at Newmarket, I presume the plan would be that the stand or stands should be locomotive. This were a great improvement in the economy of these structures generally: for example, what a convenience it would be in inclement weather for the Goodwood Grand Stand to take up its company in Chichester!.... The middle week was one of the finest I ever remember: indeed, with the exception of the last, every day resembled July-when it does as it ought to do. The sport, too, was ample in amount, and a very fair average as to quality. It began soon after noon on Monday the 13th ult., with a Handicap, won by Skeleton, followed by a match between Duc-an-Durras and Captain Phoebus, which ended in the order I have placed the horses. We then had a two-year-old Fifty in two classes; Fugitive winning the first, and The Hero the second. Lord Exeter contrived actually to secure a 10 sovs. Sweepstakes with his filly by Beiram, out of Manto; and after that, Minotaur beat St. Lawrence in a match, Abingdon Mile. The Post Match for 300 sovs. between the Duke of Bedford and Lord Glasgow, the former had the best of--I had almost said, of course. By Jove! the noble earl must either have the pluck of a gladiator or the patience of a martyr, to stand all the beating he does. Fifty sovs. for three-year-olds and upwards Event won cleverly, the pace making sad intervals in the field. The wind-up of the day was the match between Nottingham, ridden by Capt. Peel, and Croesus, by his owner Capt. Campbell. The former is known as a very fair amateur jockey, the latter as, I believe, one of the best gentlemen billiard-players going. He had been in intense preparation for this set-to, and had backed his horse for a round sum; but it must not be disguised that he made a miserably bad fight of it. He led up to the Duke's Standard, when Capt. Peel drew on him; for Croesus was already in difficulties: like others similarly situated, he met with no assistance in the moment of his worst need. At the finish his master let go his head-in short, abandoned him to his fate; while Capt. Peel, sticking the needles into Nottingham, "holed" his adversary most artistically. Tuesday, the cynosure of the meeting, rose all sunlight and fair promise, but by no means realized the hopes of those who counted on tens of thousands flocking to the tryst. The company (in numbers) was a good one, but considerably less than the attendance was on the same occasion last year. It need not be said that the great event was the Cesarewitch, the greatest popular race at Newmarket. The Two Thousand has its attractions; but the very fact of the Cesarewitch being a handicap, surrounds it with a halo of interest for the million. A question affecting the weight to be carried by Jenny Wren had been very properly decided over night by the committee appointed to settle it. She was originally handicapped at 5st. 6lbs. ; the conditions being, that any winner between the time of publishing the weights on the tenth of September and the day of running to carry 5lbs. extra. Now, Jenny Wren won the Staffordshire Stakes at Lichfield on the ninth of September; and the weights for the Cesarewitch were published on that day instead of the tenth as originally declared, undoubtedly from some oversight of the publishers of the Racing Calendar. The position of Jenny Wren was not to be injured by the tort of other parties; it was weak to moot such a point; and therefore I will not sacrifice space in dealing with the defence of it. But I will ask, why there should not be some day of the week, or some days of the month, on which the Sheet Racing Calendar should regularly come out? All other journals and periodicals are published according to some rule of time or other; but you never know when you are to look for your Sheet Calendar till you see it. The racing commenced with the Royal Stakes, won by Lady Anna, whom no one seemed to think was in the race; and then, indeed, as before and during it, serious work was made of the Cesarewitch. From the few horses backed, say half-a-dozen or thereabouts, getting round was out of the question; so the poor bookmakers had to grin and bear it. After various alterations in the telegraph, it appeared that twenty-seven would really come to the post; and after similar doings in the ring, the betting left the Baron at 5 to 1, Jenny Wren at the same odds, Boarding School Miss at 7 to 1, Intrepid 10 to 1, Paint Brush 12 to 1, Vol-au-Vent-that came just before the race with a Chifney rush-the same: Remorse 15 to 1, and then the outsiders from 25 to 1 downwards, all without friends. The start was unanimous, this department working capitally upon the new principle, |