ARCHER'S BIG SEQUENCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2359, 11 May 1899, Page 36

ARCHER'S BIG SEQUENCE.

Remarking on Sloan's great feat of riding five successive winners at Newmarket, it lias been stated that Archer went one better than that at Lewes in 1882. But, as^a fact, did he not go two better? asks "The Guvnor." T grant that *he only won &ix races on the last day of the meeting, but he finished lip the previous day by steering to victory Joe Davis's Fortissimo for the Queen's Plate with four runners. The. second day started with the Town Plate with nine runners ; that he captured with Arthur Cooper's Sunshine. /The Priory Stakes, eight runners, followed; that fell to him with Polaris. Then he won on Bob Peck's Fiancee, but this time he had only five opponents. There was again a field of nine for the Lewes Handicap, and once more he scored on Fortissimo. In the Mount Harry Plate there were but three runners, and they laid 3 to 1 on him and Alfonso, and landed the odds. The last race he figured in was the Hamsay Welter Handicap. That in a field of five he won with itamsbury. The last race of the day, and the only one he did not capture, was the County Cup, for which a couple only faced the starter, and good old George^^prdham on Mowerina beat Charley Wood on Martini. So you see Archer's sequence was seven instead of six. From a punter's point of view, however, this long sequence was nothing very wonderful, on account of the extremely short prices taken about every one of the seven winners. I remember a sequence of five once, when Archer's followers had much sounder reasons to congratulate themselves. This was at Chester a few months earlier in the same year, when he won in succession the Mostyn Two-year-old Plate on Camilla, at 4- to 1 ; the Cestrian Selling Race on Columbine, at 5 to 4 ; the Belgrave Welter Cup on Duval, at 7 to 1 ; the Stamford Two-year-old Plate on Petticoat, at sto 4- ; and, in the first race on the following day, the Badmington Two-year-old Plate on Camilla at 4 to 1. One sovereign

'" played up "' tli rough this hequence of five would, I believe, have won exactly £1011 10s, considerably more than 16 times the amount which would have been won in the same way over the big sequence of seven, where a so vereign would have run into about £61.