perhaps, a little high on the leg, though altogether a very useful if not a very showy-looking horse, with a docile quiet temper and excellent action. PERFORMANCES. In 1849, Voltigeur, then two years old, ridden by Bumby, and running in the name of Mr. Williamson, made his first and only appearance of the year at Richmond, where, carrying 8st. 71b., he won the Wright Stakes of 10 sovs. each, for two-year-olds, Grey Stone in, beating Mr. Dawson's Mark Tapley 8st. 5lb. (2), Mr. R. H. Jones's Stepping Stone 8st 71b. (3), and Mr. B. Green's Cadger 8st. 91b. 6 to 4 on Voltigeur, who won cleverly by a length. After this race he was purchased by Lord Zetland for a thousand guineas, with the proviso of five hundred more should he win the Derby; and having been well wintered by his Lordship's trainer, Hill, at Richmond, did not again show till the realization of that event, when, In 1850, at Epsom, Voltigeur, ridden by J. Marson, won the Derby Stakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft., one mile and a-half, 204 subs., beating Mr. Hill's Pitsford (2), Lord Airlie's Clincher (3), Mr. Gratwicke's The Nigger (4), and the following not placed :-Mr. Ford's Penang, Mr. Edwards ns. Bolingbroke, Captain Bastard's Mildew, Mr. Hussey's Royal Hart, Mr. Gannon's Deicoon, Mr. Gurney's St. Fabian, Mr. Greville's Cariboo, Mr. Davidson's Charley, Mr. Meiklam's The Italian, Lord Exeter's Nutshell, Mr. Lister's Knight of Gwynne, Count Batthyany's Valentine, Duke of Richmond's Ghillie Callum, Mr. Merry's Brennus, Lord Eglinton's Mavors, Major Martyn's The Swede, Mr. Disney's Captain Grant, Mr. Moseley's Alonzo, Mr. S. Herbert's Augean, and Sir G. Heathcote's c. by Sir Hercules out of Dark Susan. 16 to 1 against Voltigeur. Won easily by a length. SUMMARY OF VOLTIGEUR'S PERFORMANCES. In 1849 he started once and won once- In 1850 he has started once and won once- ....Value clear £60 5,550 £5,610 Voltigeur's present engagements are in the Great Yorkshire Stakes, at York August Meeting, but for which, with a penalty of 71b. and Pitsford, The Italian, The Knight of Avenel, and others against him, we should hardly think he would show. Next on the list, and for which he has now plenty of takers at 5 to 2 against him, comes the St. Leger, with the Scarborough Stakes the following day, and the Knight of Gwynne to be encountered at a 10lb. penalty. Beyond these his liabilities do not yet extend. Lord Zetland, the owner of Voltigeur, has been on the turf in a small way for the last ten or twelve years. We find the spotted jacket registered in the Colour List of the Calendar in 1841, but the few horses his lordship has brought out until very lately did but little for " the owner's name," as the card-sellers have it, even on the Richmond and Northallerton circuit, to which their performances were generally confined. Within this season or two, however, there has been a decided improvement in their quality; and Ellen Middleton, Cantab, and others, mildly C prefaced the way for the Derby winner. Lord Zetland's horses, as we have already remarked, are trained by Hill, at Richmond, and Job Marson has a regular engagement to ride them. Of the latter we can only say, that every succeeding race he appears in adds to his reputation as one of the most accomplished and powerful horsemen of his day; while with Robert Hill we have only to couple the names of Bob Johnson and Bee's-Wing in assertion of his experience and ability to handle 66 a cracker." THE RACING IN JUNE; WITH A REMINISCENCE OF EPSOM. BY CRAVEN. "Write, as if St. John's soul could still inspire, ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS, 66 If, as some Hygeists assert, it is a wholesome practice to get drunk occasionally, upon the same principle the excitement annually produced by the Derby may be regarded as a useful national sanitary movement. Extending the hypothesis, and taking into account the lesson to be derived from its books, he who has assisted at its celebration, returns from the solemnity a wiser and a better man." Read the page aright, and you shall find "sermons in stones, and good in everything "—even in Epsom races. The great social "cobbler" for 1850 was as politically compounded as it was palatably mixed. No Derby, probably, was ever more artistically "mounted." The form of the two-year-old stock of the previous year had been a low average-only one winner of any pretension had shown. Moreover, had the spring performances of the threeyear-olds were bad, or at all events mediocre. When you add to this that the solitary autumnal exception alluded to was by unimpeachable testimony ascertained to be a flyer, and that the Lord Chancellor for the animal had fallen into Chancery-had intimated that several thousands of pounds should not purchase him-the horse-till after the race: when, I say, you put all this together, you will have little difficulty in understanding how it came to pass that Bolingbroke--for so was the courser called-was a prodigious "pot." This monosyllable, indeed, does not look graceful, neither does it sound euphoniously; but you will excuse it when you see how pat it is to my purpose, by reason of the cooking" for which it was used. I have had some experience of stable diplomacy-am by no means fast asleep to training tact-but even on the turf, "est modus in rebus "—or there ought to be. So, in the Craven week I went to Newmarket with a bias to believe in the pet of the Palace stables. One, every inch an English sportsman, had sent him forth to win two of the most influential races of the previous year, and had died before his great essay. I knew the ties that bound those on whom the management of the animal had devolved, to him from whom they derived their trust. It would have been unholy to have doubted the good faith of their dealing with such a duty. To Mr. William Edwards, one of the most experienced and respectable trainers at Newmarket, was delegated the detail of his preparation for the Derby. The property in this celebrated colt had been made a family question; and the proposition to sell him—a step which would have realized, at the time, a very large sum-was negatived on the grounds of public faith, and upon a principle of honour which befitted the memory of his dead master. One of the most accomplished horsemen in the world was announced to ride him; and as he had no engagement before the Derby, the public backed him very heavily on the prestige of these premises. He was taken to Epsom, and, when there, it is asserted that both his trainer and jockey, as well as his party, represented him to be worthy the place which he occupied in the public favour, and that assertion has not been contradicted. It is now almost needless to say that the first beaten in the race was Bolingbroke—in fact, he never lived a hundred yards with his horses-his form was not fit to win a saddle. And thus a steed cut up, put forward by persons of authority and weight, as of quality, entitling him to be first favourite for the Derby-and thus a property which, the day before was worth some four or five thousand pounds, would not have produced as many scores. I impute no wrong doing to any one: perhaps no one was culpable; but the appearance of Bolingbroke upon the Surrey downs was not the less "a sorry sight," whether the exhibition was the result of gross dishonesty, gross igno rance, or gross neglect. It gave a blow to faith in the talents, destined to work no very distant revolution in the policy of the turf. The race for the Oaks was another "surprise." Rhedycina, the winner, had come from obscurity; like Voltigeur, at one time there were doubts about her even starting. The "glorious uncertainty was once more in the ascendant. Such a meeting had never before been known at Epsom. The Stand could not accommodate half the multitudes that thronged it to suffocation on the Wednesday. The carriage days of race-courses are over: the canaille are too powerful for the fair company. Upon the on dits I am silent. That the Derby came |