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AMERICAN RACING IN LONG GONE DAYS. Virginia had no such faithful chronicler as fell to the lot of South Carolina, and though she boasted a noble line of horses prior to the revolution, their records are incomplete. The Old Dominion was the home of the four-milers; for seventy-five years the only race horse worth considering must be a four-miler. Virginian pedigrees rise from the importation of Diomed in 1799 by Colonel Hoomes, who brought him into the country against the advice of friends wlien the horse was twenty-one years old. Diomed became the most famous horse America has ever entertained, his most famous son. Sir Arciiy, at the age of thirty-two years, living one year longer than the sire. New Yorks four horses imported by James Do Lancey amazed little Old Manhattan by their speed. The beginning of the modern northern turf may be dated from the foaling of Maria Slamcrkin by Tiie Cub mare, one of the four. However, a first-class race meeting was not held near New York until Itll. Before that date one may safely say that, in tin; greater number of races, a poor sort threw the cobbles and turf in each others eyes as the field lumbered around the green. At Bath, on Long Island, the green was laid out in 1819;- Latex the Union Course became the seat of fashionable racing. The Uni6?r" Course is the most prominent in American turf history. Here the famous battles between northern and southern horses were fought. It took many years for the Livingstons, De Lanceys. Gibbons and others to work up a fast breed of horses, but the opening of the Union Course found New York challenging the south for turf honors. The first clash came in 1822. when American Eclipse won a race on the Washington course at Charleston, S. C, from a famous southern horse. That night, at a banquet, the northern horsemen offered to match Eclipse against any horse the south cared to bring forth, the race to consist of four-mile beats, to be run on Long Island the following May, for 0,000 a side. The offer having been accepted, the southern men set out for New York the following spring with five horses. They met many misfortunes, losing two horses before arriving at their destination. Sir Henry was the favorite matched finally against Eclipse. All arrangements having been completed on the day previous to the race, the southerners gave themselves up so completely to "seeing New York" that it was said the chief among them. Colonel William R. Johnson, their field general, did not reach the green the next day until the race had been run. The disappointment of his friends is well summed up in the now famous remark of the fiery John ot Roanoke: "It was not Eclipse, but the lobsters, that beat Henry." Three hard heats were run before 00.0H enthusiastic people. It was said that over 00,000 was lost on Dixieland that day.
