in, and yet neither of them said anything about it on Friday morning, and every sporting newspaper editor knew that. Besides, supposing it took nearly four days for his friends and townsmen to hear whether such a very important man as a Derby winner's nominator was in the flesh, when the horses were past the post, they must have known it by Sunday, and it would have been all over Tattersall's by telegram on Monday morning. Sir Joseph seems to have been hasty in the matter, and he surely might have telegraphed on his own account to Doncaster before he stopped the settling. However, Mr. Sadler must be content to have died gallantly on paper before his time, like Lord Brougham and Mr. Cookson before him. We do not remember that any other Derby winner save Surplice was ever foaled at Doncaster. Mr. Sadler has gone on most perseveringly, first with one and never with more than three mares, and generally used the sires in the neighbourhood, of which he has had a very fair choice. He got one of his prettiest, but his worst colts, Peter, by wandering south to St. Albans. Hunting Horn was quite a show yearling in his day, owing to his great substance, and he made 400 gs., and now gets good fair hunting stock, though Messrs. Wetherby, T. Dawson, and Hobson soon sent him back for the £100 prize at Middlesboro', for lack of action. Tom Brooks and the other Royal judges could not see that deficiency at Warwick, even with Sir Peter Laurie, who was full of action as his foil. Grosvenor by Touchstone was out of Ferina, and his action was very shoulder tied. St. Hubert by Surplice was a

much smaller one than his brother, and he was the first that made the mare's name so well known, as old John Day quite swore by him. Gradually the Sadler yearlings have become quite a feature of the Doncaster Thursday, and if ever quiet enthusiasm deserved the honour of breeding a Derby winner Mr. Sadler's does. Still he will look upon it as a sad falling away, if Pretender does not stand No. 9 this autumn, on the list of double winners. He sold two yearlings last autumn, neither of them out of the old mare, for 1,030 gs.

"Oh! sure it was a coat of steel or tough old oak he wore," who dared to face the weather on the Oaks Day. After all, it was beautiful as compared with '68, as it did leave off pretty well when the running time came. Still, such a relentless morning we seldom went out in, and when the Downs station was reached, the cab tariff had risen to such a height, that there was a determined stand against it, and the waiting-room was one general block. There was one seat in it, a small inverted box, and that was occupied by a tramp suckling a child. As the skies "lifted" cab prices sank, and soon after one it was pretty fine overhead, but "the cup-like hollows of the Downs," of which Tennyson sings, were exceedingly holding, and how the potters had fared in those little ravines down which the water was running was piteous to think of. As one of them said, "it got in at the side of the booth, and washed us out for evermore.' The vendor of sacred books, to whose peculiarities we referred last month, had packed up his stores, and closed the approaches to his booth, within which some men were sitting dreamily on benches and singing revival hymns, or rather droning the same line over and over again. The policemen seemed to be leaving the Downs en masse, as there was positively nothing for them to do, and we were thankful that the Oaks was set early, and that the cur

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tain was to drop so soon on such a desolate scene. Very few visitors took the trouble to wade through infinite slush to the paddock, and to see the parade of the finest set of mares, as far as looks go, that have gone to the Oaks post for many a long day. Nine of them took a stall a-piece in the saddling-shed after their canters, while they were waiting for Custance, and a prettier bit of colour never came to hand. It was the racing stable which Herring conceived three-and-twenty years ago, and peopled with The Baron, Alarm, Refraction, &c., reproduced in the flesh with Brigantine, Morna, Martinique, and Crocus, together at the Town end, but not exactly in that order. Toison d'Or, a big useful-looking mare, but evidently as slow as "a top" or a man in boots," we care not which, did not get a place, and Fordham on Scottish Queen drank her's and Morris's health as outsiders. His own mare uidn't look much like following up the Oaks precedent of last year, and for game, useful looks there was nothing to touch the winner, who was for all the world like a climber. Teeswater was rather a pretty mare, and Martinique can speak for herself, but she was said to be not quite fit. Again Wells could not keep at 8st. 10lbs. for two days together, and so he gave up the Morna mount and superintended the saddling in a long coat and a great pair of cloth overalls. He must have great pluck to ride 8st. 10lbs. as he does, but it is hard to quit the scene of such triumphs while this "too solid flesh" will melt at all. The winner would have been an immense favourite if she had been in the St. Leger. By virtue of her first and second for the two Nurseries under such weights, she was the best filly of last year, but the D.M. distance in the One Thousand threw her out. It is very remarkable that both those great races are not run over the Rowley Mile. And thus ended a most wonderful week for Dumfriesshire, as not only did Derby and Oaks go there, but the Pigeon match on the Saturday, and all to "Johnstone's" of different families.

They tell a good story of how The Pretender party did the touts before the Two Thousand. The two Mr. J.'s came to Middleham, on a Saturday night, and the office was passed round among the touts, who had therefore quite a "call of the house," when the horses galloped on Monday morning. Still they did not think it was exactly a trial, and discussed matters very learnedly over pipes and brandy-andwater at the inn that night. Amid their revelry, the Pretender party rang their bell, and it was soon bruited about through the waiter that they ordered themselves to be called in time for the earliest train from Leyburn. The touts thought nothing more would be done, and retired to rest. Not so the two Mr. J.'s, who came quietly down as soon as it was light, and tried to get out of the house. The fastenings defied them, and a servant girl heard them, and thought it must be thieves. However, she was squared, and instead of giving the alarm, came and let them out. They walked to the Moor and saw Tabouret put the question some time before the watchers were on their towers, breakfasted, and left for the early train. We tell the tale as a Yorkshireman of veracious lips told it to us. Mr. Padwick would, it is said, have gone in strong for Pretender as a yearling at Mr. Tattersall's suggestion, but the remembrance of the handsome impostor Peter out of Allegra of the year before, kept him out of another Sadlerian purchase. We don't wonder at it, for if ever a colt looked like racing, Peter did.

Whether Pretender is much above the average we exceedingly doubt. He seems like a game horse in a middling year, and nothing more. Both over the Newmarket flat and at Epsom, where he had to force the running for part of the way towards the finish, he answered at the last pinch, as a race-horse should. Whatever ground Pero Gomez lost, was lost at a time when the pace was not great. When they really took to racing, he was well up in his place. As for The Drummer and the Grand Prix, the oftener Englishmen who cannot be content with racing six days a week go over and get beaten, the better we shall be pleased. The Turf has enough obloquy to bear in the public mind, without Sunday racing. As it was, The Drummer won £400, and lost all chance of eight times as much if he had been nursed for Ascot. The existence of such a rich race as the Prince of Wales' Stakes gives owners not even a pecuniary excuse for sending trainers, grooms, and jockeys off deliberately on a Sabbath-breaking trip. The horse show is now quite an accepted interlude between Epsom and Ascot, but still the quality of the horses and ponies does not improve with time, though the funds do. We did not see any of the low, short-legged hunters, and only two or three jumped in the real orthodox style from hind leg to hind leg. The jumping has been reduced to more and more of a system, and without it the afternoon would be dull indeed. As long as the owner of the hunters like it, and masters of hounds can be got to judge and help they will do well to go on with it. The crowd grew insatiable in their demand for the water-jump, such as it is, and Mr. Sidney could not ride down the ring without being shouted at to negotiate it. The man who did worst in the ring during the week, whether riding or driving, was the white hatted one, with the Russian trotter, and he was ordered out at last, after some most impotent water-jump efforts. He wouldn't give his horse the chance of jumping. Small as the water-jump was, horses were most jealous of it. Some turned round and round, and one stopped short with his head under the furze hurdle, rather than face it. We saw it only done once in real style, and that was by Mr. Beasely's horse with Payne on him. Mr. Anstruther Thomson and his groom John Pye, and Captain Percy Williams had a hot time of it, "picking up the pieces" and splicing the fences on the Tuesday; and the mangement got a rare fright with the accident on Wednesday. There were two London surgeons in the crowd, and the third, who proved to be the man's own attendant from the country, arrived in the nick of time, to the patient's great delight. There was not much damage, and the man was watching the leaps next day. [The Captain celebrated his 63rd birthday this year by a rare run with the Pytchley. They had one very stiff fence, four rails and a ditch out of a plough-field. Mr. Thomson made the timbers rattle on Valeria, but got over; a great light weight came down a cropper; and the Captain jumped it clean on Rainbow. Mr. Thomson has bought back Ins at the heavy advance price for which Mr. Padwick sold him to Mr. Gerard Lee, and Sir F. Grant, R.A., is busy on horse and owner as large as life.] At the prize contest, where Mr. Tailby and Mr. Clowes presided, little Major did splendidly, but could not quite manage the high jump, and Huntsman was admirably ridden. The grey Queen Mab did both jumps well in the sweepstakes when she steadied down a little.

Perhaps the finest fun during the week, was with a man driving a barouche, who quarrelled with the crowd and aggravated them by ironically bowing to them as they hooted him. It was about ordering the Russian horse, whose bells bothered him, out of the ring, and when his own advertisement placards were taken out of his barouche, and the Russian returned in another match cart, the crowd had a great pull. However, he afterwards brought in his little white pony to jump by itself, and there was peace in the land once more. Mr. Badham on his prize hack Eclipse was another study, and certainly, if that is his reading of "deportment" with the elbows out, his is not a style to follow. For two days he never seemed off horse-back in the ring or out of the ring, at the refreshment table, and even trotting outside among the packing-cases to show Mr. George Holmes. It is rather troublesome to people in the avenues, and so bad a precedent, that it should not be allowed. Mr. B.'s bow to the judges when he entered the ring had been so Sir Charles Grandisonian, that it was quite a disappointment to us that he rode past his future sovereign, without a salute. The directors worked manfully in the ring. One performed upon the bell and rung in the classes, and another raked away to get the ground in front of the water-jump into order, and then stood holding his rake like Neptune with his trident. They did their own work, and they did it very well, and when the jumping flagged they got up a sweepstakes and so "kept the ball a rowling.' There were certainly very few entries of much mark. The first-prize heavy-weight hunter stepped nicely, but still he seemed to have a harness forehand, and he cut no figure when the four winners came together at last for the medal. Casson's Comedian was far below his Commissioner, but still the latter would be better of another strain of blood, and £200, the first price he fetched, seemed his full value. We doubt whether the "Mano'-the-Age," whom all Midland buyers know well, would have given that for him. Motley seems to be telling in Cumberland, but old Crafty has been barren to him both this season and last. Now that Carlton has come to them, they will be pretty full of Stockwell blood, but since the days of Royalist and Corinthian, they have never taken kindly to a chesnut. Dalesman is a nice strong-loined horse, but still we thought the judges quite right in putting Whitby over him. The little infirmity which Professor Spooner handled so tenderly, will unfortunately knock him out of shows, but independently of Custance's testimony, Mr. Holmes might have known that for an owner to give his own certificate to a horse, was to put him under suspicion at once. Broomielaw's stepping must have got him his H.C., as assuredly there was nothing else. Polly Baker, that half-bred ball of a mare, winning in a riding and cover hack class, and a cream being placed second among ladies' horses were, most assuredly "Things hard to understand," and we doubt whether the latter decision will influence young ladies in begging "a love of a cream" from their papas to ride in Rotten Row. They certainly would deserve to be taken under such circumstances for a quack doctor's bride. Some of the conveyances which competed were very odd, and why one man should have come in a gig, was day after day our great mystery. This part of it was most unimposing, and there was no sensation driving of any kind. Shepherd F. Knapp now performs on the York race-course; and the tykes

have taken very kindly to him as a trotting sire. At the last York races his man and he got parted somehow, and off set the chesnut as if guided by invisible hands at the same steady trot to the gate, whereby he had entered the course. Perhaps the choicest thing in the show was Mr. H. Farquhar's prize riding-horse Champagne Charlie; and Captain Barlow had a very nice second prize hunter, Topstall, though we did not just like the the setting on of his neck. The bicycles in the gallery were immense fun, and the tricks the riders played with them sitting sideways, and carrying a man sitting on their necks were marvellous. The greatest strictness is preserved as to taking things out of the building at the close. The very bicycles were challenged, unless the holder could produce the entry ticket for each. So it was with the horses, and well it might be, as two or three years since a London thief in groom's guise came in as soon as the building was opened for their removal on Saturday morning, and was calmly laying hands on Earl Spencer's hunter, when the groom arrived.

The nurse-maid who could only describe Italy as being (6 as warm as warm,” would have had full scope for her twin epithet, if she had been out for the Ascot Vase day with her young man. Many struggled to go second class for the sake of being cooler, and they generally achieved their wishes. The occupants of a pretty full train, minus those which have taken to cabs, occupied nearly half of the long lane leading from the Ascot Station to the Stand, and it was marvellous to see how one and all of both sexes-sound or "piper"-mounted that choking hill at the finish. The booth interest seems to increase each year, and their payments rose in proportion, but "the listers" help them out by taking the front shop." The humours of the place are poor enough. They died with the immortal "Jerry," when he was crushed under the carriage at Goodwood in '48. The big man who used to take up a needle with his eyebrow from the ground is still there, deeply furrowed with age, and still slinging that venerable battered ball to get an audience for something. The two men and the bear came down, but we saw them retreating, and fancy that the police had given them notice that the bear would be pole-axed if they came on to the course, and they fled into another county for safety and for succour. horse of sensibility" was there, and so was the man nursing the monkey, which rides him, but after all, Nigger minstrels held sway. One or two boys had ropes and offered themselves to be tied up, but it didn't come to much.

"The

Lord Cork rode bravely on a very beautiful bay, at the head of the Royal Procession. In fact, it is seldom that one sees within a week, two such "regular gentlemen," and so much alike as this bay and Mr. Hervey Farquhar's. Harry King was there on the brown with the white legs, but good as he is, we missed sorely the old man with the eagle beak, the delicate hand and exquisite seat, who rode year after year behind the master, on Hermit, Columbine or Sepoy. He loved well that part of his royal service, and he was bitterly disappointed when, in the latter period of his life, the procession was forbidden year after year, and he had merely to look on from the Stand or his own stile. He died, we hear, worth about £20,000.

The Jockey Club always look more at home in their eyrie at Ascot than anywhere else; and, perhaps, it may be the volumes of Weatherby