m. d. h. m. h. Morning. 1 T Partridge & pheasant shoot. ends. r 7 4226 RISES 11 5 S Howey (Radnor) Fair. s 4 51 29 m. h. m. 511 37 6 8 0 38 1 5 1 26 1 50 2 10 2 35 afternoon s 4 55 7 2 55 3 15 r 7 32 2 8 24 3 30 3 55 3 9 42 4 15 4 35 411 04 55 6 Fifth Sun. after Epiphany. 13 Sixth Sun. after Epiphany. 15 540 60 6 25 6 45 r 7 21 2 36 7 10 7 40 8 15 8 50 r 7 17 10 3 37 9 35 10 15 4 31 10 5811 40 29 T WATERLOO (LIVERPOOL) C. M. r 6 4924 3 Biggar (Open), 1, 2, 3, 4; Mountainstown. 2, 8; Hornby Park (Catterick), 3, 4; Newmarket, 7; Workington, 7, 8; Nordley (Ellesmere), 9; Everley (Wiltshire), 9, 10, 11; Altear Club, 10, 11; Atcham (Salop), 11; Leyburne (Open), 15, 16; Border (Roxburgh), 15, &c.; Lytham (Champion), 16, 17, 18; Midlothian, 22, 23; Newell (Bromsgrove), 23; Ardrossan Club, 24; Waterloo (Liverpool), 29. Others for this month not fixed. PROSPECTS OF THE TURF IN 1848. BY CRAVEN, "Est ubi plus tepeant hyemes-ubi gratior aura?"-HORAT. Once again spring is with us, after a winter prodigal of violets. Without disparagement to the good old times, sportsmen, at all events, have cause for congratulation at the changes which afforded them a clear stage for their performances. Diana has smiled upon few seasons like that now in discussion in the annals of the chase it shall be marked with a white stone. Shooting is over, as far as relates to winged game, till August. Cedant arma toga-guns are laid by, and the silk jacket is "looked up ;" for Liverpool Spring Meeting occurs on the first day of the next month! The open weather, which has kept the hunting stud going, has, of course, done as much for the training stable. Unless some very improbable alteration in the thermometer should take place, racing teams will be unusually forward in their work-whatever their places for their engagements. Before we speak of these, however, it will not be out of season to say a word about the recent efforts that have been made to improve the moral condition of the racing republic. For half a score years or more I have uplifted my voice against the practice of herding the goats and sheep together on the turf. I have ceased not to urge the convenience of some system of classification, if an entire separation of races should be held impossible. For this I made account to get, and did get, knocks of all kinds, professional cross-buttocks, amateur appeals to the knowledge-box, and miscellaneous manifestations of malice from "the mob of un-gentlemen who write at ease"-from unrestraint of grammar and grace. Well, thus it went on; and the legs went off, when it suited them better than standing their ground; and things were fast going to the prince of darkness. During the summer and autumn of '47 default was the rule, and keeping an engagement to pay the exception-with the ring. Some of the big wigs went for the gloves, and subsequently for a tour on the continent; while the small fry betook themselves to philosophy, and repudiated the liquidation of accounts in the spirit of ancient Pistol. The middle men did still more they stood upon principle-paid or let it alone (the latter, of course, nine times out of ten), according to their interest or caprice; and pitched into "the blackguard press" for not approving of their way of doing business. In a sporting paper there appeared a melancholy narrative of the blowing-up of the editor; and on all hands it was agreed that "quite athwart went all decorum" at Tattersall's. Thus, it must be admitted, matters had come to the worst; and a universal cry arose that they should be amended. A committee was substituted for the single voice by which the entrée to the subscription room was wont to be regulated. The members issued their rules: alas, for poor human ingenuity they were pronounced an improvement in the art of misgoverning. Behold how the correspondent of one of the weekly journals deals with them : “Their first law, requiring the recommendation in writing of two subscribers, is, I think, unnecessary and troublesome to obtain; for people in general do not like to ask their friends to speak to character, nor do men like to speak pointedly respecting the character of others, especially when their opinion is to be scrutinized by those who are in the habit of attending at Messrs. Tattersall's; and is, in reality, no test of the candidate's solvency. If a gentleman wishes to become a member, why not let his name be placed in a conspicuous part of the room for one week, and then admitted, if the committee see no just cause or impediment why he should not be a subscriber? The second rule is so very undefined that it is impossible to say what it is. It is an attempt in a blindfold way to legislate for the future, and a sort of mock bar against the law of libel. The third rule is very stringent indeed against the unfortunates who have been, as well as against those who may become so; but I think it conveys more than Messrs. Tattersall intended for no man whose name figures, or ever did figure, upon the forfeit-list at Burlington-street can be a member; nor can any man who has ever made default in payment become a member, however wealthy and respectable he may be now-and I could point to a dozen names who stand thus affected, but who are now A 1. The fourth rule is all very well; but it might be simplified. Instead of having two referees and an umpire, why not in case of dispute leave it to one referee; and, in the event of his not being able to decide, give him the power to call in an umpire, to be chosen from the committee? The fifth rule is very necessary. The sixth, seventh, and eighth are mere notices." : As a composition this extract is not particularly sublime or distinct; but it goes to show that the new executive is not giving universal satisfaction. Well for us if it don't fail still more emphatically. Some of the junta were so liberal of sentiment last year that they earnestly urged Mr. Tattersall to admit to the privileges of the room a "party" convicted before the Jockey Club of something very closely akin to that which one of his friends had elegantly termed "a lagging job." If this be a specimen of the future policy of the committee, a fine field for young "Fagins" will be opened in "the immediate vicinity of Grosvenorplace and the Parks." It seems to be the instinct of civilized man to set about everything he undertakes in a roundabout way. One would think the simplest recipe for escaping the probabilities of being robbed was to avoid the society of rogues. Not so says the Olympian reform parliament:-"Take the thieves as before," runs its prescription, "with an infusion of circumspection as an alterative." So a code of laws is constructed, and a vote of grace is passed, restoring to the turf malefactors, without reference to their degrees of crime; for the purpose, let charity suppose, of testing its efficacy. If Punch were to pourtray a sitting of such a house, I should like to lay odds the Speaker would be drawn in a cap and bells When racing society shall be conducted upon the principle that regulates all other social intercourse, then the turf will be found void of offence; but not sooner. When gentlemen at Newmarket shall cease to countenance those they would discharge their servants for associating with in London, the turf shall be without offence against right and reason; but not before. When the engagements of the turf shall be conducted in the spirit of honour, instead of after the letter of custom, every Englishman will regard racing as a sport fitting his country; but not sooner. When horse-racing shall be a national sport and pastime, in lieu of a snare for the foolish and a contrivance for the keen-witted to profit by popular hallucination, it shall have become entitled to the sanction and support of a moral people-of the land we live in; but not till then. To this condition I have sought earnestly to bring it; and in that good work I will labour so long as my connexion with sporting literature shall last, and the cause need the efforts of so poor an advocate. Till the turn of the year the sole turf event in the market-and then only exhibited for sale, without buyers-is the Derby. New-year's day supplies the nominations for most of the great spring handicaps, and the weights for same. I am writing on the 8th of January, and before me lies the sheet Calendar of yesterday. The first column contains the handicaps for the Renewal of the Newmarket Stakes, to be run for in the Craven Meeting. At the head of it, topping all ages and "forms," stands War Eagle, 9st. 4lbs. This is, I presume, intended as a specimen model for the handicaps in posse. I venture to hope, albeit not without misgivings, that the day may come, in which all the professional details of the turf will be committed to the management of known responsible officials. Many of us can remember the time and the place where the race was not always to the first; where, when certain persons ran a respectable second, it was pretty well anticipated how the sentence would go. Well, that has been reformed; but still much remains that will admit of improvement. First and foremost the existing system of handicapping. As regards the effect, it matters little whether the monstrous injustice most of them inflict upon owners of race-horses be the result of folly or foul play. I have in my stable an animal which, from his public performance, I deem it expedient to reserve for a certain handicap. The course suits him; and I know (if I am qualified by my judgment to be "on the turf") that he will be able to carry the weight which in fairness and experience ought to be assigned him, with a good share of chance to be "there or thereabouts." Anon comes the official announcement of the weights "Is it a dagger that I see before me?" The top weight of all on my four-year-old—a third-rater of his year, the winner of a race in which there was nothing else but an animal that had been run off its legs and was absolutely as stale as a poster! Suppose The Hero had been at Doncaster the horse we saw him three months before at Ascot, what weight would have brought War Eagle within reach of him? The Calendar published on the 7th ultimo gives a goodly return of the various stakes which closed on the first of the month. For the Second Spring Meeting it has a sweepstakes for two-year-olds, with oneand-twenty subscribers: an early beginning and an interesting start. The Criterion has thirty-nine nominations; and, among many items of interest, there is the Third Triennial Produce Stakes for 1850, 1851, and 1852, for which eighty-eight mares are named. The Doncaster entries are very good, both for the two and three-year-old stakes. For the St. Leger of '49 there are 143 subscribers; to the Chester Cup 155; to the Manchester Tradesmen's Cup 86; and the two-year-old races at Goodwood are an improvement upon the past, which, when it was the present, seemed very like an impossibility. The only point wherein the list disappoints the reader is the character and amount of the field named for The Great Metropolitan Stakes. With a bonus of £500, the largest amount of public money given in England, it has a smaller entry than that for the Northamptonshire Stakes, to which only £100 is added. Notwithstanding the liberality with which this handicap is got up, so far from enjoying any éclât, it is treated with positive apathy, if not with something still less flattering, in racing circles. The licensed victuallers of London and the metropolitan districts have found the cash, with a spirit worthy a better acknowledgment. They have, however, failed to give their bantling caste; and until that can be brought about, the million, always followers of the "twice two thousand," will think "small beer" of Epsom Spring races. No season within modern memory was ever so precocious as that towards which we approach promises to be. Since the Houghton Meeting closed the racing year of '47 there has not been a day, or any portion of one, in which the routine of the training-stable was interrupted. Horses have been constantly going; and we shall probably see the fields at Coventry and Warwick as fit as they were wont to be at Ascot and Goodwood. Neither will there be any falling off in the spirit of enterprise; though it is likely credit may lack somewhat of the fanaticism it used to rejoice in. It is true there has been little or nothing done yet, except on events for immediate discussion; but there never is anything of account negotiated at Tattersall's till the session sets in at St. Stephen's. The Derby, indeed, has been nominally in the market; but little more. This may help us to surmise how the prices quoted have ruled as the returns from Hyde Park Corner made them the last three months. That they will be found all in the wrong, as indices of the standing of the animals in the market when business assumes its earnest attitude, is beyond all question. Taken as deductions from the mere abstract merit of two-year-old performances, they are altogether false. Sussex, and York, and Hants, will be better represented than they are before the Easter recess, or I shall be much astonished. In its social position the turf bids fair to take as high ground as ever it held. It may not, indeed, number, as of yore, princes among its patrons; but in a popular point of view it reay well boast pride of place. As a proof I point to the Northamptonshire Stakes, and ask where may be found a catalogue of fairer names than are there prefixed to the various nominations? Moreover the English turf is fast becoming the British turf, Ireland and Scotland largely contributing to all our great meetings. And here is another and a rapidly increasing objection to amateur handicapping. It would take all the application that the most shrewd and experienced man could bestow on it to arrive at a fair average estimate of the public runners in any one of the home racing districts. How are gentlemen, then, who never set foot in Ireland in their lives to be in a condition to estimate the character of a race-horse whose performances have been confined to the Curragh of Kildare? The difficulty in apportioning weights by no means increases in an equal ratio as the fields of horses increase, but at the rate of a hundred per cent. a head. When the difference between 4st. 6lb. and 9st. 6lb. has to be divided between a hundred and fifty or two hundred animals, the scales require nice balancing. I cannot better or more usefully illustrate this than by giving the highest and lowest weights for the great spring handicaps. For the Great Northamptonshire Stakes War Eagle is put at 8st. 131b., and Sir F. Goodricke's filly, out of Ridotto, at 4st. 7lb. ; |