OLD-TIME STEEPLECHASING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1036, 13 January 1910, Page 6

OLD-TIME STEEPLECHASING.

In a brief interview with one of the old school of Australian cross-country riders, Bob Batty, a Melbourne scribe obtained some interesting “copy” from which the following excerpts are made:

In the seventies Batty was in the first flight of flat race riders, and throughout the eighties he had no superior as a rider over the jumps. Bob Batty is the .only jockey who claims the honour of riding both a Melbourne Cup winner and a Grand National Steeplechase victor.

On Wolloman he won the- Melbourne Cup of 1875, and 1881 piloted Mr. F. C. Goyder’s horse, Sussex, to-

victory in the first Grand National Steeple, defeating a hot favoruite in Mr. Martin Loughlin’s mare Twilight. “The country traversed in the early V.R.C. Grand National Steeplechase at Flemington,” he remarked, “was bigger and stiffer than to-day. Many of the jumps reached 4ft 4in and 4ft sin. At that time, and until eleven years ago, the Steeplechase course on the river side, after leaving the straight, ran on the outside of the course proper. Here there were three post and railers, which were 4ft 4in high. These fences included a double with about 100 yards between jumps.” Concerning the frequency of accidents in jumping races, R.B. opined: • —“(Mishaps in cross-country races were not so numerous in the eighties and the reason is that Grand National candidates and cross-country performers were better schooled, and consequently jumped better, than in later periods. It was no uncommon thing for the old-time steeplechaser to be schooled for twelve months before he saw a fence in public. “Suburban steeplechasing was but little known in those days, and the temptation for an owner to try in races over stiff country a horse who shows aptitude in suburban steeples was not so pronounced.” On the question of the best steeplechaser he has known, Batty gives Sussex pride of place. “Sussex,” he remarks, “is certainly the pick of ’chasers I have seen. He won his Grand National carrying 13.1, and the performance was all the more meritorious from the fact that Susisex hurt himself three fences from home. Another great performance of Sussex was the winning in one afternoon of the V.A.T.C. Maiden Steeple, of two miles and a-half, carrying 11.1, and the Victoria Gold Cup, of two and a-half, carrying 13.5.” After Sussex, Batty places Redleap and Daimio in that order of merit.