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OLDTIME RACING IN CANADA Racing in Canada has made undoubtedly great progress in recent years Some people will imtimtlly deplore this lint otbers will see ill the tact tliut there is something lo be pleased over It hardly bccms so but nevertheless it is forty live years since 1 stood at the gate of a Canadian race course and took in quarters from people who passed in to see racing that if the nelds were not as numerous as tliev are today produced ap ¬ parently as good sport What is more the purses would have compared favorably with the size of those given today with this exception that an entrance fee was charged which helped in a measure to swell the funds of the club or associa ¬ tion Hut good horses competed horses that were subsequently the sire and dams of animals that later on raced under more auspicious cjrcum stances and at that time Canada had horses that not only won at home but went abroad into the States and landed the money at the best meet ¬ ings There was Trouble for Instance a flat racer at the time but later one of the best steeple ¬ chasers on this continent Before him there was old Terror sire of more Queens Plate winners than many horses that succeeded him In fact I dont know but what he stands at the head of the list of sires in that respect to this day Sara ¬ toga was the favored stamping ground of Canadi ¬ ans at that time and there they succeeded in bringing off several good coups Halfmile coupsHalfmile tracks were few in those days It was generally a mile or nothing Half miles were left lo tile exhibitions or fall fairs I have often found myself wondering whether the concentration of rac ¬ ing at the larger centers has been for the real good of the horse interests At the time of which 1 speak meetings were held at many places not now lieard of such as Longtou 1rescott Barrle Wood utock and Vhitby In Ontario and Three Rivers and other places in Quebec Ottawa too where the sport lias recently been revived was on the map and the acres where then the course existed passed into the possession of a Presbyterian Church to be ¬ come what is now one of the new residential dis ¬ tricts of the capital Queens Ilatcs for the inau ¬ guration of which the late King Edward VII was resiHjhsible were then moveable feasts Montreal of course had its meetings at the old Blue Bonnets track which now is a railway center and Quebec shone forth brilliantly sb too did Halifax and other places in the maritime provinces Possibly the meetings were not so well organized then as now but tlie world was younger and did not take w much satisfying The era of the promoter had not set in and governorgenerals did not attend in state stateAn An old sportsman asked me the other day which was the greatest race horse in my opinion the rnited States ever produced With a recollection of the time when Longfellow beat liar y Basset for the Monnionth Cup and the latter turni d round eight days after and defeated his rival for the Saratoga Cup at the same distance two and onehalf miles and the excitement that prevailed at the time and of the famous Parole son of imiwrted Leamington and Maiden I declined to answer 1 did call to mind however how the latter owned by Pierre Loriliard was taken to England and proved him ¬ self the ecjual of any handicap horse there how he beat the great Isonomy for the Newmarket Handi ¬ cap and in the same year 1870 won the City and Suburlian the Great Metropolitan the Great Cheshire Handicap and the Epsom Gold Cup and bow he opened the following year by finishing first for the Liverpool Spring Cup and had It taken away on a charge of swerving Isonomy subsequently sold for the big price In that period of 45000 had his revenge on Parole it is true but they were bota the representative horses of their countries at the time and which was really the best it would be hard to say It is true that the American gelding finished his English career by running some bad races but in bis prime he was a rare good Mm It has always seemed to me that historians of the American turf never did Parole justice His glory was certainly eclipsed when his owners Iroquols also a son of imported Leamington won the Derby and St Leger and the late J 1C Keenes Foxhall won the Grand Prix of Paris and proved to lie one of the few that have landed both the Cesarewitch and the Cambridgeshire in the long distance race beating the great Chippendale and in the shorter event conceding nineteen pounds to Tristan another threeyearold that was second to him in the big race at Paris Luke Black ¬ burn Miss Woodford Hanover Hindoo Sysonby Dmiiino Ballot Celt Colin were all great race horses but who shall say any one of them was better than old Parole or Iroquols or Foxhall or Drake Carter that came to Canada when he was broken down and died of a broken heart when he was asked in his crippled condition to run against a pack that in his prime he would have dis ¬ tanced inside a furlong Never shall I forget the two or three beautiful lopes the longtime three mile record bolder gave before he finally suc ¬ cumbed and the Canadian who bid 24a lor the old horse at the Loriliard dispersal sale claimed that be did it to save him from a worse fate H P Good in Montreal Mail
