"BETWEEN THE FLAGS."

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1213, 31 May 1895, Page 24

"BETWEEN THE FLAGS."

i The way in which flagged steeplechase courses came to be adopted in England is somewhat curious (says an exchange), i " Tommy " Coleman, of St. Alban3, became imbued with the idea that a rightawvy race of four miles or so, though, doubtless, exciting enough to those who took part in it, did not afford as much fun as it might to the spectators, who, if they went to the start, soon lost sight of the horses; while, if they took up their position at the winning post, they seldom saw anything but a hollow victory. Accordingly his inventive mind planned the out and home race, so that the'race ended where it begun. He did not at first flag hi 3 course ; but had men with flags concealed in ditches or behind hedges, and they, as the horses approached, showed themselves and their flags to guide the riders on their way. This was the first step towards breaking down the old point-to-point form of steeplechasiug, and the innovation having been once introduced, it was an easy step to the use of flags stuck in the hedges as we see them now ; hedges were next trimmed and made up instead of being left, as formerly, in their natural unkempt state. To Coleman ia also due the invention ot the hurdle race which he devised, as he explained, "especially to please the ladies," who, when the St. Albans Steeplechase became a going concern in 1831, accompanied their husbands and brothers in great numbers. The steeplechase two miles out and home, was from a spectacular point of view, an improvement on the old straightaway race ; but Tommy Coleman thought that a race run in so confined an area that the horses should never •be out of sight would b 9 a still greater attraction ; so it turned out ; and his hurdle races were run round a couple of fields to the delight of the ladies, for whose pleasure they were arranged.