“YE OLDEN TIMES.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 302, 7 May 1896, Page 7

“YE OLDEN TIMES.”

It is difficult for owners and trainers of the present, day, ■when a valuable horse, trained to the hour, can be sent anywhere to mee l an engagement within twenty-four hours, to appreciate the difficulties felt by their predecessors before railways were introduced. In those days horses were marched over the country at the rate of ten miles a day, and a winner of the Oaks in 1836, was dispatched once from Epsom to take part in the Newcastle Plate, with a full month spent on the journey. Lord George Bentinck’s enterprise devised a plan by which racehorses were placed in a van, a sort of travelling stable, and taken by post-horses all over the kingdom. The first occasion on which this new machine was employed was in order to send Elis from Goodwood to take part in the St Leger, in 1886, the horse having been left temporarily in chaarge of John Kent’s father. His success at Good wood and Lewes had induced Lord George to back him heavily for the Leger ; but. just before the race he found that some parties were helping themselves largely on his horse, and he made it known that unless his commissioner was accommodated with a bet of £12,0u0 to £l,OOO he would not start him. The bet was laid, as John Kent suggests, because it was believed at that period to be impossible to get Elis to Doncaster in time for the race. However, Lord George’s newly-in-vented van w r as brought into requisition, and, on the Friday before the race was started, laden with Elis and his schoolmaster, the Drummer. The distance of 250 miles was divided into three sections of about eightly miles each, and on the Sunday morning the two horses were galloped on the Lichfield racecourse. On the Monday evening Elis was safely stabled in Doncaster, the cost of the journey having been about £lOO. On the Wednesday he won the Ledger, and Lord George was well repaid for this expenditure. When he finally joined the Goodwood stable, Lord George had six such vans employed by John Kent and his father, and doubtless this invention had much to do with the success of his stable.