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we doubt whether, in her best day, she was much, if at all, better than Longbow. This horse, like Stockwell, looks calculated to carry nearly a stone more than anything which is stripped against them; and we believe this to be the great secret of their success. We still doubt whether Stockwell will stay a Cup distance, and he assuredly would have no chance at two miles with Kingston, who is a perfect model, and, take him all in all, the handsomest horse of the year. He has splendid quarters and ribs, and shoulders, is short on the leg, and perhaps rather too short in the neck for beauty, although it supports a very blood-like head. True to his Venison and Slane blood, distance seems his forte, and not speed. If Augur can be got at all right, we shall no doubt see him win the Port Stakes. In private he was a wonderfully good horse, and if he could have been brought to the post in form, we fancy that he and Job Marson would have given Stockwell more to do than he could comfortably manage in the St. Leger. His young companion, Tros, is also very well spoken of at Middleham. Little Harry was rather over trained at the Derby, or else our eyes deceive us wofully, and Chief Baron Nicholson looks made for a length. It was on account of this penchant, which they of course never discovered in their short-match sort of trials, that Weathergage came under the ban of Captain Rous. Alas! when the Captain is in the height of his match triumphs on the Heath, the breezés must often whisper in his ear, as the slave did of yore into that of the laurelled conqueror, the ominous triplet of names : Justice to Ireland, Bonmot, and Weathergage.” Stilton has gone off sadly since the Metropolitan day, and we hardly knew him again when we saw him in September. Judging from the deadly confident expression on the faces of his owner and trainer, &c., in the Epsom paddock on the Metropolitan day, we remarked to a friend, “ This race seems to be the deadest certainty we ever saw," and so it proved. He reminded us much of Galaor as a three-year-old, although we trust he is not growing the stone in his bladder, which so effectually quenched the racing career of that fine son of Muley Moloch. Whether Hobbie might not have just won the Derby, if Whitehouse's motives in hedging his money had not been misunderstood, is of course mere speculation ; but we are certain of one thing, that in his antumn form he had the foot of every three-year-old out, while Knight of the Shire beat him for the Cambridgeshire with a great hole in his foot. Hobbie was only coming to his real form when he, or rather Marlow, just floored Harbinger for the Don Stakes. He has nothing to do with long Cup races, and no Pantaloon ever had yet, that we, at least, can call to mind. As for the once renowned Claverhouse, he is now at once a coward, a skeleton, and a windsucker.

If the two-year-olds of this year are not able to decide their differences at Epsom next May, a court of appeal lies open to them in the St. Leger, as, oddly enough, although that race has only 99 entries, it includes The Queen, West Australian, Umbriel, Georgy (Dawson's Derby horse, according to “ The Man in the Street''), Filbert, Sittingbourne, Gossip, Orestes, Feversham, Sylphine, Speed the Plough, Cineas, The Reiver, Orinoco, Brocket, Elmsthorpe, and Hurworth. The other entries at Doncaster also look healthy, and as they have come out with £1,200 for next autumn (there will be £1,505 added in all), they richly deserve it. The £200 motion was, literally speaking, only won by a “ head," as the Mayor was in the minority; and if the numbers had been equal, and not 11 to 9, he would have floored it.

Exact and Vindex in the North, and Catherine Hayes, Elmsthorpe, The Reiver, and Orestes, in the South, may be fairly said to be the six “ first classes” of the year among the two-year-olds. An unhappy contretemps to both prevented the two first from getting each other's length over a mile ; but we fancy that at this distance, or any other T.Y.C. in existence, the chesnut would have had the better of him, or any other two-year-old of the season. She is a very nice mare, a trifle over fifteen hands and a quarter, rather drooping from the hip to the tail, and straight behind. To complete her picture, we should add straight neck, good shoulder, capital ribs, coarse-ish head, and long ears. No one deserves a good animal better than John Osborne, who is to our mind the best judge of weights going. Brocket, Cineas, Ninnyhammer, and North Pole, we have hardly looked over. Lord Jersey has had a wonderful fancy for Cheddar ever since he was a foal, and the stable booked his race at Ascot as a dead certainty. Although they certainly urged one very plausible reason to the contrary, every one who saw the race, except themselves, feels sure not only that their horse swerved purely from temper or distress, and not from any fault of the rider, but that, if the Reiver's rider had not been bound down by very stringent waiting orders, he could have made the neck a good three parts of a length. We quite think that those positions will be reversed if they meet again in bloom and on sound ground at Epsom, where, with perhaps Sly up: we anticipate his finishing in the first three. He is a thick, strong animal, scarcely fifteen hands and a half, and, if anything, rather short. His half-brother, Constantine, is, like his dam, Crucifis, a very fine specimen, but not blessed with the best legs in the world. North Pole will, we fancy, be the “ cherry-jacket” Derby horse, and learn his lesson from “ The Great Cariboo." Orinoco does not give one an idea of staying ; he is light behind the saddle, with good legs, and a plain head. He looked very much fresher on the Clearwell day than he did when he ran for the Champagne Stakes; and the injured Bill-Lackaday look of his eye on the last-named day betokened that Teddington had been mixing his trial-draught a little too strong. Talfourd, the 3,000 gs. yearling, has hardly been a satisfactory purchase for Lord Ribblesdale. He has a good back, quarters, ribs, and shoulders, but he strikes us as a little long on the leg. Filbert is, like him, a great fine animal, but a little flat-sided like his sire, and rather narrow. He had a ragged, sluggish, look in the Clearwell, and, if plenty of previous trials (so report says) could make a race a dead certainty, they ought to have had that one safe enough. Feversham, the dark horse out of the Bedford stable, is very fine and big, but his legs are said to be cranky; and we should not be surprised if Sittingbourne is found to be in the same mess next season. This son of Chatham is almost over sixteen hands, level, very powerful, and generally good in his points, but we think his action is clumsy ; and his challenge to Nicotine at York struck us to be like that of a warlike carthorse. Pharold, another of his stable companions, will, we expect, make no little talk for the Derby, though we do not ourselves believe in him. We should call him a biggish horse, flatsided, and with a tendency to be leggy. Pharos is very prettily shaped, but with hardly sufficient stuff about him to make a Derby nag; and we thought Dagobert a light little animal, with nothing particular to recommend him, Vanderdecken seems anxious to rival the eighteen-hand Magog, and looks like doing very little good, at least till his four-year-old season is here. If he only stops growing he will make a wonderfully fine horse, as he is a regular Bay Middleton, and has much better loins than his noble brother. The effort of producing such a Goliath in 1850 seems to have utterly ruined Barbelle's breeding powers, as it is feared that she is barren to Irish Birdcatcher ; being the fifth mishap of the kind she has had in eleven seasons. We have heard that Annandale will probably be her next love. John Day's presumed Derby horse, Elmsthorpe, is made in the mould of the Hero, and is little, straight behind, and drooping towards the quarters, and with a nice spiry top ; while Catherine Hayes is one of those fine animals whom it is almost impossible to criticise, and likely to retrieve the falling fortunes of Lanercost. She is, perhaps, (as an old trainer remarked to us) the result of his having such a comparatively few mares sent to him in 1849, in comparison with 1847-48, when his great trio of descendants, Van Tromp, War Eagle, and Ellerdale, had made him all the fashion with breeders. Sylphine is a much lighter-looking and very bloodlike mare, something after her brother's cut, with good quarters and shoulders, but not much bone. “ The Squire ” assured his friends, after the Woodcote Stakes, that he had not tried the mare to be anything particular; but, seeing how easily she disposed of Gossip, Speed the Plough, and Dagobert, we fancy that she ran pretty well up to her form, and that Orestes is nearly the best form out, and a wonderfully good-looking colt he is too. He is trained by a son of “ Catton King,' at Harpenden, and we do not at all expect to hear of his joining the Malton team next spring. Hurworth is, however, the “ great unknown” of the year, and if his trial is anything like his look, Messrs. Jacques and Read are in a fair way to take the Derby by storm. We are, however, quite prepared to find West Australian at the head of John Scott's Derby division. He is lengthy, tall, and very fine altogether, with good quarters and corresponding action. The want of a pace did him in the Criterion; and it is said, that so convinced were Speed the Plough's stable of his superiority to their horse, that they backed him manfully in the Glasgow Stakes. Umbriel is a little round horse, slightly inclined to be hollow-backed, and, like every third animal that Earl Derby breeds, with a very good notion of pace. Speed the Plough is nice-looking, compact, and rather thick set, as many of the Cotherstone's are ; while The Queen is “ too fine" for our taste, and likely to run to leg, and tire over anything like a distance. Broughton is just one of the opposite order, and looks not only uncommonly like a stayer, but as if his mamma had enjoyed an interview with Iago in 1848 instead of 1849. Iago gets his stock in all shapes, and not, like so many of his brethren, after one type, and we know no horse whom we admire more in his vocation, though Sweetmeat and Pyrrhus the First will soon be at the top of the tree. Comfit's stiff sort of action does not take our fancy ; but as a specimen of horseflesh she is almost perfect, and likely to pay her way; and Placid is a nice lengthy mare, of The Ban cut, with shortish legs, and a still shorter temper. If the latter had not operated, she ought to have beaten Nathan at Northampton. This latter was a very pretty little specimen, with nice com

pact, propelling, sort of quarters, and a very pretty neck and head, the latter, if we remember rightly, tapering towards the nose like Tadmor's. Vaultress is one of the little sort, with very slight capabilities of improvement about her, and for real usefulness give us Pelion and Lambton, who are of the regular “ cut and come again" school, and the former especially likely to make a good Cup animal. We hear very good reports of the two-year-olds of 1853, and among them Brother to Maid of Masham is very much “ cracked of” in the North, and is very heavily engaged too in 1853-54. We were told at York that if Earl Glasgow had not applied a few hours too late, he would have had him at £450. His Lordship was in perfect ecstasies on the last Saturday of the Houghton Meeting, and Nat got £200 and I'Anson and Lye each one £100, for their share in the six matches of that day. I'Anson's salary has also been increased in consequence of this “ wind-up." This was one of the most salient incidents of the season, which have been few and far between. Not a thousand hours from the afternoon in question, a great shindy (we mention no names) is said to have come off between a gentleman and his trainer, with whom he had not been on easy terms for some time past. The latter had tried a filly, and reported her not worth backing, and “ got on " very heavily himself. Well, the race came off all right, and the flabbergasted owner, who had not backed his animal for a penny, was all on fire, and, having forcibly extracted from the boy, who rode in the trial, that he had had express orders from the trainer to enact Captain Armstrong on that occasion, he, with no very mild gesture or language, ordered my gentleman out of his house, adjoining the stables, bag and baggage, before the evening closed in. With this little episode we drop our race-quill for A, D. 1852, and take leave of the Turf till May-morning,

ANCIENT HUNTING IN BRITTANY.

BY GELERT,

The still wild and primitive manner in which the wolf and boarhunting is conducted in Brittany, and which resembles in every respect the practice of ancient days, has induced me to search for records connected with the glorious chasse of that country, and to present to the reader, curious in such matters, an extract translated from the work of Jacques du Fouilloux, a gentleman distinguished as a chasseur in the reign of Charles the Ninth of France. This will be found a suitable introduction to the papers which I propose to communicate at a future period, on the practice of the present dayTHE RACE AND ANTIQUITY OF HOUNDS, AND HOW THEY WERE

FIRST INTRODUCED INTO FRANCE.

BY JAQUES DU FOUILLOUX, I have diligently searched whence and where, according to ancient as well as modern authors, the first race of hounds appeared in France ;

and have failed to discover any chronicle or history which gives an earlier account than one which I saw in Brittany, written by a man named Monumetensis : this treats of an epoch subsequent to the lamentable destruction of Troy.

“ Æneas arrived with his son Ascanius, king of the Latins, in Italy ; in which country a son was born to him, called Silvius, from whom Brutus, a celebrated hunter, was descended. It happened that as he and his father were one day hunting in the forest, evening came on, and the day becoming gradually darker, they were about to return home, when perceiving a stag, not far off, attacked by their hounds, they hurried up to kill him ; but by some mischance, as Heaven would have it, Brutus missed the stag, and killed his father. The people thinking that he had perpetrated this act of parricide out of malice or a desire to reign, rose and rebelled against him ; and such was their fury and indignation, that in order to save his life, he was compelled to fly from the country. In this dilemma he undertook a voyage to Greece, whither he went in order to liberate a number of Trojans, who had been his allies and companions in arms, and who had been detained in captivity since the destruction of Troy-which achievement he accomplished by force of arms. After he had thus effected their deliverance, he induced them, with a number more of their countrymen, to swear that they would never again re-visit their native land. This oath they were not only willing but anxious to take, owing to the dishonour their city had sustained, and their own utter destitution and wretchedness, since they had lost all that could render life desirable.

“ They immediately prepared a great number of vessels, in which Brutus and all his followers embarked, taking with them a great number of hounds. Then setting sail, they pursued their course, until they had passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and arrived in Brittany ; which country Brutus, owing to the celebrity of his name, conquered, with but little resistance on the part of its inhabitants. Here they dwelt peasefully during a period of four years, when Corineus built the city of Cornouaille. Shortly after their arrival, when they had accustomed themselves a little to the inhabitants of the country, Brutus and his son Turnus commenced hunting in the extensive forests which lie between Tiffange and Poictiers.

“ In those days there reigned in Poictou and Aquitaine a king, called Groffarius Pictus, who resided chiefly at Poictiers. From time to time he was informed of the exploits of the Trojan settlers, and of their skill in the art of venerie ; how they hunted in his forests with a wonderful race of hounds, which, having once roused a deer, never ceased in their pursuit until they had run him down and killed him. On hearing this, the king became so enraged and fierce that he determined on making war on the intruders, and for this purpose assembled a large force. The Trojans, apprised of these hostile preparations, collected an army, and marching along the banks of the river Loire, encountered the enemy on the spot where the city of Tours now stands, where the two armies engaged in battle. Turnus, Brutus' eldest son, was killed in the engagement; and to commemorate the sad event Brutus built the city, which derives its name from that of his heroic

son."

I was compelled to relate the above history in order to prove that

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