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History of American Thoroughbred Thirty-First Installment. Regulus is worthy to be mentioned as a horse of great repute in his time. At six years old he commenced by winning a plate of 50. He won six Kings Plates the same year and walked over for another. When seven years old he again won a Kings Plate, which finished his career on the turf. But the career of Venison must be esteemed more brilliant, especially if his age be taken into consideration. Like Babraham, Regulus was the progenitor of many valuable horses, ana hi3 blood was found in the most prominent studs of the middle of the nineteenth century. This affords another illustration of the remark recently made "that a horse having won a great number of races is not invariably the most successful in his progeny." CATIIEItlA A WEIGHT CAItlHER. Although last on the list Catherina stands prominently conspicuous for her performances. When the ability to carry weight is brought forward, this good, honest creature must be introduced as a worthy example. She ran and won on many occasions with 108 pounds on her back and defeated Confederate at York, each carrying 196 pound3. Confederate had gained great distinction at high weights and Catherinas victory was not a vague honor of beating a competitor of unknown merit. It is a matter greatly to be regretted that the distance at which this prodigious weight was carried so victoriously by a race horse and the time in which the feat was performed are not given. It is not in my power to supply either deficiency. The latter, probably, cannot be supplied. This and the irregular length of the principal races as the Ledger, Derby, T. Y. C, Beacon course. Round course, Goodwood Cup and Drawing Room Stakes courses, none of which consists of a certain number of full miles, but of miles and fractional parts of a mile, render all comparison between the merits of English and American horses difficult and embarrassing, if not impossible. It seldom happens that a mare which has been Icept in training many years, however superior her performances, lias conferred the same high character on her produce, and Catherina was no exception. Alecto, her dam, was a fairly good mare, but by no means a first-rate one. She was sold at four years old by Mr. Houldsworth, who bred her, and her subsequent owner confined her engagements principally to running for country plates, which were much in fashion at that time. She won several of these plates, but never beat horses of high repute. She ran frequently in 1S27, when in foal, and the result was a colt, by Banker, which was never trained. In 1830 she foaled Catherina, This circumstance is somewhat remarkable, for it rarely occurs that mares which are trained and raced so severely ever produce foals until they have enjoyed at least five or six years repose. It confirms the assertion that there are no positive rules for the guidance of breeders. Clothworker, Rataplan, Virago, Beeswing and Alice Hawthorn claim distinguished position on the scroll of fame. When comparing the performances of race horses it is not customary to compute the aggregate distances which they may run in their various races. With contemporaries contending for races for which the distances are nearly equal it would form no criterion. COMPARISON OF HOUSES. In this case it is a different affair. The object is to determine whether the allegation is well founded that the horses of olden time were superior to those up to the middle of the nineteenth century in point of stoutness, soundness and constitutional stamina and the ability for frequent running. A reference to the table of performances already given sets that question at rest The total number of races won by horses of the latter time is also greatly in excess. Taking these two circumstances into consideration the palm of merit for soundness, capability of frequent running and stoutness must be awarded to them. Every owner of race horses and every trainer knows full well that frequent running of moderate distances tries the legs and detects infirmities more unequivocally than occasionally running long distances. Two miles will determine the lasting powers of a horse if the pace be true from end to end. While it has been clearly proved that the horses who performed in the middle of the nineteenth century were superior to those of their forefathers in the points already named, there is still a question whether those racers could beat Flying Childers, Regulus, Eclipse, Highflyer and other worthies of the eighteenth century. In the United States four-mile heat racing has been practiced to a greater extent, at greater recorded and positively established speed, and with greater proof of endurance of fatigue than it has ever been elsewhere, either in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. The early American four-mile heat racer is, in fact, nothing more than an unmixed descendant of those very same worthies of the olden day. In 1S37, when I first landed in the United States, timing was wholly unknown in Great Britain. This led to the assertion that because the Englishmen did not time their horses the horses could not bear timing which would disclose inferiority in point of speed to the race horses of America. After a while a few American gentlemen, accustomed to timing, kept the time of a St. Leger and a Derby and then the fact came out that on several of these occasions the English horses ran quicker under heavy weights than the best American did under light weights. Gradually and reluctantly it was universally admitted that the time of the best English horses, about the middle of the nineteenth century, under heavy weights and at short distances, was quite equal to that of the best American horses. For example, in Vol. XI., American Turf Register, I find the following passage : Nothing is so interesting to American turfmen as to ascertain the exact time in which the English race horse performs a given distance. We have a memorandum before us, made by an American gentleman who attended a Liverpool July meeting, in regard to the time made by Lord Westminsters Sleight-of-Hand, by Pantaloon, which won the Tradesmans Cup, beating Charles XII., Cruiskeen, Deception and thirteen others. The distance was two miles and Sleight-of-Hand, a four-year-old and carrying 109 pounds, performed it in 3 :36 The race is described as a close one. The winner, Sampson and Charles XII. were so closely handicapped that Sleight-of-Hand won only by a neck, Sampson beating Charles XII. for the second place by a head. But the most wonderful circumstance yet remains to be told ; Charles XII., which came so near winning, is a four-year-old, and carried 125 pounds, only a pound less than an aged horse carried on the Union course. The Derby Handicap, run on the same day, was won by Lord George Bentincks Capote, by Velocipede, a three-year-old, with 93 pounds on his back. He ran once around the distance, called a mile, in 1:57. In reference to the measurement of the English courses a writer in tho American Turf Register, Vol. XL, states: Your correspondent doubts the speed of English horses and talks of the reputed length of courses. On that subject I would observe to him that the course at Doncaster has been accurately measured in the presence of Americans and some of the fastest races have been timed by Americans with reliable watches. A personal view of the English horse3 and of English racing has convinced me that their horses have more speed than ours and a greater capacity for carrying weight. These things admitted there is little reason to suspect they have less gamcness or bottom as they are descended from the same root and bred with the greatest care and attention. The question of superior speed has been apparently given up. Another writer who concedes the fact of greater speed in England at high weights inquires if the difference may not be attributed to the superiority of Hie turf courses in England. Being familiar with most of the race courses in England and all the northern courses in the United States 1 should reply that I greatly doubt the superiority of the turf courses for the making of good time as a general rule, though it is perhaps less hard upon the feet. THE TURF COURSE AT ITS BEST. When a turf course is in its best condition, which is not once in a hundred limes, it is perhaps in all respects more favorable to pace than any American course in the same condition. But when the ground is thoroughly dry and baked and the grass, as 1 have often seen it, burnt until it is slippery; or when, as is generally the case under the weeping skits of England, the grass course is fetlock deep in stiff mud, covered with a tenacious sod, it is worse than I have ever seen on any course in the United States. I am certain that I have seen Knavesmire, at York, and from the hill to the red-house and thence half way to the finish, at Doncaster, ten seconds at least worse in the mile than ever I saw any part of a rac3 course in America. I believe there is a manifest advantage, especially for lengthy horses, in the larger size and less abrupt turns of the English tracks. I have seen that noble race horse Mingo suffer repeatedly by being pulled out of his stride in order to go around the awkward short turns of the Union course. I have no doubt that either on the Beacon, which is straight, or on the Goodwood course, which is arranged in long sweeping curves without any sudden corner, he or any other good horse would improve, other things alike, on his American time. ADVANTAGES OF HEAVY WEIGHTS Again, I am decidedly of the opinion that the use of heavy weights, as on the British turf, is of as much profit as loss to the horse ridden in allowing the riders to be men who can control the animals, restrain or call out their powers to the utmost and who in head, heart, seat and hand are horsemen to perfection, instead of children who, half the time, have as much as they can do to hang on by the reins and are run away with from the score to the winning post, utterly unable to judge of the pace they are going or to regulate it if they were. In regard to the bottom of English horses I desire to point out first that a number of indifferent horses did make, under enormous weight, 154 pounds, extremely respectable time. One horse, by no means above a third-rater, according to his previous character, made extraordinary time in the Osbaldeston match, as admitted by the Americans who purchased him after the Newmarket Houghton meeting of 1831. Regarding the gameness of tho English thoroughbreds the following is illuminating: At the Doncaster races in 1839 Opera, sister to Burletta, by Actacon, won the Cleveland Stakes, at one mile, in which sixteen horses participated. The next day she won the Corporation Plate, at two -mile bents, scoring in the first and third heats. Two days later she won the Town Plate, vt two-mile heats, scoring in the second heat. The third was a dead heat between her and Humphrey and she then won the fourth heat, running the last mile in 1 :49, with 119 pounds up. Each heat was well contested. The last mile of the second heat was run in 1 :48 and the last mile of the third in 1 :50. The last mile of the fourth heat was done in 1:49. In 182G I saw the counterpart of "this race, run for the same Corporation Plate. The following is an account of the race taken from "The Annals of Sporting" of that year: Purity, the winner of the Town Plate, had on Wednesday won the All-Aged Stakes, St. Leger course-two miles less 312 yards in 3 :37, carrying 107 pounds, at four years old. The All-Aged Stake is a selling slake, with the winner liable to claim at ,000, but not deliverable until the end of the meeting. I mention this to show precisely how near to the head of the turf Purity stood and, as a consequence. Opera likewise. Indeed it is notorious to every English turfman that no owner will enter a valuable horse or mare for a race which takes so much out of an animal while the game, 00, is so small that the renown to be attained by defeating inferior horses is nothing. No time was kept of the race of 1826, but this detracts nothing from the stanchness or capacity to repeat in the horses. 00 Plate, for three and four--year-olds. "Weights, three-year-olds, 103 pounds; four-year-olds, 119 pounds. Maiden colts allowed two pounds and maiden fillies, three pounds. Two-mile heats. lord Kelburns ch. f, 4, Purity, by Octavia 1 3 10 1 Mr. Richards blk. c, 4, Brownloek. . .1 6 2 0 2 Sir J. Byngs ch. c, 4, Thales, by Tramp 5 10 3 3 Sir Wra, Milners b. c, 3, by Tramp.. 6 2 3 dist. Mr. IUdsdales br. c, 3, by Oiseau 3 1 0 dist, Duke of Leeds blk. c, 3, by Crow-catcher 2 5 dist. To Be Continued.
