The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-03

been seen at EpSOll, anu lllc PS'Plo who were there and are still alive VIII never forget the sight of the hln' packed with thousands of human pe- ings, or the course from TattenEain Corner to the finish with it's crowd a dozen deep all the way. Sir Richard Mayne, who was then at the head or the police force, astonished memper of the royal family by announcing that, in his opinion, about five hundred or our foreign visitors carried reVolVers or daggers on Epson race course that day.
 In olden days, indeed, not long before Teddington won, the task of getting horses from their training grounds to Epson was a very serious business. Before Lord Bentinck had his horse van constructed, al race horses, to De strictly correct, nearly all, had to go by road, and were walked from place to place at the rate of about twenty miles a day. When the first horse van was used it is difficult to say. Colonel O'KelIy's famous horse Eclipse, Whlch died at Canons, on the IldgWare Road, in 17S9, at the age of twenty-five years is said to have been conveyed thlther in a van. In the early part of the last century there lived at Red Marley, near Ledbury, MT, Terrett, noted cattle breeder, and he had been accustomed to send fat bllllocks to the Smlthflelo show by vans, and when his horse Sovereign had to go to Newmarket for the Two Thousand Guineas, in 1Sl6, Doe, who trained him, suggested that chn lNp mi springs for the conveyance of the horse, which was done. In his life Sir William Greg ory writes that Lord George BentncK
 was the first man who ever put race horse into van, and when the plack- legs at Doncaster thought his famous horse, Elias, was safe on the Sussex downs, and were betting agianst him as if he were dead, he was trotting Tn his van to Doncaster to win the St. Leger in a canter two days after ward"
 Before trains and vans were invented, however, there was no little FISK IF taking the favorite for a great race about the country Chiffneys Priam, the winner of the Derby of 1850, and four other horses left Newmarket on the Friday week before the race at 4 o'clock in the morning, and on the eve ming of the first day reached Newport, in Essex, a distance of twenty one miles, staying the night at an inn kept by Mrs Belcham, whose eooseperry pies enjoyed a reputation which eX- tended beyond the county boundarles. The second day found the horses at the Sun and Whalebone, on Harlow Com mon, a sporting house even in the days of long ago; London was reached on the third day when the horse was visited in some stables near Sloane street py some of the prominent racing men or the day; when he proceeded to Mlckle- ham and thence to Epson. At the present day a race horse travels com fortably in his box.
 Hermit's sensational win in 1867, when he started at 66 to 1, is well re- membered, and another famous hero or the Derby is the Duke of Portland's Donovan qSS9), horse which during his two and three year old career won no less a sum than close on E5b,ooo, while Isinglass, the Derby winner or 1885, won in four seasons-he ran as a five year od-about G5S500. Any one who has studied "The Racing Calendar will not need to be told that George lV. when Prince of Wales, won the Derby in 17SS with Sir Thomas, and then the royal collars were not carried first past the post in the Derby until the King s Persimmon won in 1896, and those who were at Epson will never forget the re- ception accorded the winner. How many of the hats thrown up in the air were lost for good and all cannot be imagined. "The Princes Derby" as the race of that year was called, will ever be one of the landmarks Of the turf, and there is no doubt that Per simmon was wonderfully good horse from the beginning. Fortune having knocked once at the Kings door, made another visit in 1900, when, for the second time the Derby fell to the royal colors with Diamond Jubilee, younger brother of Persimmon. It is sincerely to be hoped that the King has not won his last Derby.
 Mention must be made of the Duke of Westminster's victories in the ia nous Epson race, because the four Derbys won by the late duke carry on a sequence of turf successes at Ep- som which began in 1790, when Lord Grosvenors Rhadama minus won; while John Bull, in 1792, and Daedalus, two years later, were victorious. The late duke won his first Derby with Bend Or in 1880, his second with shotoYer, in 1882; his third with Ormonde in 1886, and his fourth with Flying Fox, in 1899, A good deal might be written in con- nection with the first two including, for instance, the doubt which for some time existed as to whether Bend Or was really the horse of that name or Tadcaster. Ormonde and Flying Fox, however, must be specially mentioned, not only because of their successes in the Derby stakes, but because of the prices they realized. Roarer as he was, Ormonde is said to have fetched ESQ., 900 in South America, and when the Duke. of Westminster decided to sell so unsound a horse he was rather abused in some quarters for parting with so good a servant, but he was certainly right not to breed from horse whose ancestors had been affected in the wind
 Tn March, 1900, the late Duke of Vest minister's horses in training were sold at Kingsclere, and among them Flying Fox. His reserve price was the fortune of S0,0 ,000 guineas, a sum which was too much for any English speculator M' Blanc was opposed by an American