THE OMNIBUS.

"There he sat, and, as I thought, expounding the law and the prophets, until on drawing a little nearer, I found he was only expatiating on the merits of a brown horse."-BRACEBRIDGE HALL,

Racing Mems-Sales of Hunters, &c.-The Epsom Meeting-Ascot and other Meetings of the Month-The late Mr. John Elmore-Mr. Rarey-Great Sales of Blood Stock-"Silk and Scarlet."

The late month has not been one of especial interest in the racing world, although both Epsom and Ascot have been crammed into it. We never knew the three-year olds so weak as they were at Ascot ; and considering that there are all the elements of a good betting St. Leger in Summerside, Promised Land, and Marionette (Trumpeter's case is said not to be quite hopeless), it does not seem to excite the slightest interest. The Royal Stud have not chosen to avail themselves of The Cure for a second season. We always thought that they would have, if possible, selected Fallow Buck to give a royal diploma to; and we are certainly surprised at the lot falling on Voltigeur, whose stock have done very so-so this season, seeing that there are nearly twentyfive two-year-olds by him. Loup-garou supplants Oulston at Cawston, and we should not be surprised to see the latter go to America, as they were nibbling hard at him this spring. Fandango filled his subscription, and we expect to see a day when he will get his 40 gs. quite as easily as his 15 gs. Ignoramus is now at Wentworth, and we trust he will permanently supplant The Little Known, who is not worthy of their twenty good brood mares. His lordship intends to conduct his racing on the good old style, not running his horses for any handicaps or at two-years-old. They have, we believe, a ploughed gallop of two miles, and capital general accommodation. The position of trainer as well as rider was first offered to William Boyce, but he declined it, and it was then given to his brother Henry. We hear that William Boyce is to ride for Lord Zetland (who has made Coates-the head lad, who used to look after Fandango-his trainer), when Johnny Osborne's services are required elsewhere. Poor B. Green died on the last day of Hampton Races. Since the memorable 1847-48 seasons-when Assault, Beverlac, and Flatcatcher, who ran in his name, carried all before them, the scarlet was quite the stay of some of the Northern meetings-of late he comparatively seldom went to races; and he was generally to be seen sunning himself of an afternoon in front of the White Bear, near which he kept his betting-shop, before the present Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench descended on them. This occupation suited him to a nicety. No one paid more promptly, and laid fairer odds to "the million." His natural caution and knowledge of racing gave him an immense advantage. You did not find him laying 8 to 1 against Teddington for the Ascot Cup in '53; and for him, he showed quite animation, as he laid 60 to 1 before the Derby over and over again against Cheddar, to whom so many Cockneys took such a strange fancy. No man got less "skinned" than he did, as he seemed to know to a nicety when a "hot'un" was "coming;" and the commissioners looked blank enough when they took him in their rounds, and found the ink still wet, which baulked

their hopes in the odds list. He used occasionally to go and see Winteringham, at Richmond; and we were particularly struck, when we met him on the race-course there, on the morning, the last Chester Cup and other spring handicaps came out, with the close masterly analysis he gave them at first sight.

The hunters up at Tattersall's this year have not been a great lot, with the exception of five or six, but still the prices have been remarkably good. Lord Ailsa had a great sale, and he bought in The Farmer for 560 gs., Mr. Joseph Anderson making the last bid of 550 gs. He was first purchased by that gentleman from his breeder, a Mr. Elliott, near Weedon, for a long sum two years ago; and was got by the Northamptonshire horse Catesby, a son of Slane and Cobweb. No hunter has touched the 620-guinea Cassio in price; and we understand that Mr. Anderson still has him, and intends to hunt him again next season. The sale of the late Marquis of Waterford's stud produced £13,194, and 8 out of the 144 animals were not sold. Gemma di Vergy, to whom all the brood mares have been put, made £250 on his £800 purchase money last year. Ireland looks on him as the veritable Sir Hercules the Second. Deformed (£360), Juanita Perez, the dam of Drogheda (£350), and Peri with a Birdcatcher foal (£280), were, it was said, purchased for Hampton Court. Lord George made £500; Ace of Hearts, a chesnut steeple chaser, £350; and May Boy, the horse from which his lordship had his fatal fall, £91. He was bought in last year for £300. A Teddington two-year-old made £275. The Russians were ready to go up to £800 for "Jemmy;" and the crowd from all parts was so great, that hundreds could get no luncheon. The 25 couple of foxhounds only fetched £1 per couple.

The Derby and its excitement have passed away so long that we seem to have almost forgotten it. As a lot, we thought the horses to look at, rather better than usual. Enfield was a nice level hunter, but seemed as if he would be slow; and unpromising as the mount was, we were right glad to see Marlow on something again: but he looked as if all the eight-stone-seven was in the "Charley," and very little left for the saddle. Gaspard did not please us at all. He has grown longer in the leg since the winter, and not got length in proportion; and although he bends his knee well in his gallop, he seems to labour from the shoulder, and has a generally short and jumped-up appearance. Balnamoon is longer than his half-sister, and has a great vulgar blaze and loose quartered style with him when he walks. Poor Electric was in a bath-and well he might be, with such a coating of beef to carry on that hot day; but for beauty we never saw him excelled, with his plump quarters, plump even barrel, and lovely tapering head. The roundness so much talked of in his legs was gone, but it would have taken at least six weeks of steady work, still, to get him anything like fit. Marionette is rather prettily turned, and has got a good deal of liberty since Ascot, but he does not give one the idea of a race-horse of very high class. It was as much as Rogers could do to waste for him, as his foot required a good deal of fomentation to ward off gout at Bath. Sam was, however, quite himself, and in fact when is he not-in the saddle? Trumpeter is a much more rough-and-ready style of gentleman, and with very little quality about him, which is rather strange in an Orlando; and we never saw Alfred Day look more really anxious; and well he might when victory hung on the standing of such a doubtful leg. William Day was as airy and confident as possible.

We could picture him saying, "Now Mr. Weatherby, just hand me over that little six thousand cheque to save trouble, before I canter over this course." His horse seemed equally cool, but carries his neck in quite a non-staying camel-leopard fashion. On the whole he seems improved since the Criterion, and his loins are thicker and better than they promised to be then; but he never was one of the Dervish kind there, though anything but satisfactory. Ticket-of-leave is small, plain, and looks like a nice whip's horse in a crack country. As a yearling at Tattersalls' we did not much like his shoulder for speed chances; and as it seems from the evidence that he was about fifteenth instead of second, this is another proof of the wisdom of trusting to public form, and not to private trials. A Yorkshire friend, who backed him, assured us that he knew of the trial; and that not only did The Ticket give Gladiolus 21lbs., but Hesperithusa joined in at even weights for the last mile, and he beat her off as well. It is a mighty strange thing that, a week before the Derby, every favourite gives everything it is tried, with exactly 21lbs. and a beating; but since the Honeywood trumpet was blown so loudly by John Osborne, we have become like a deaf adder, and do not care to trust such charmers.

Many thought Musjid a "waddler " with his hind legs, but it seemed more like that long-dwelling step of his grandsire Touchstone, without bending the hock. His head got so high in the air that Wells could not get it down again. "The Squire was more confident than any one we saw about him; and as we were chatting to Tom Hills, at his old outpost on the hill, just as they were going to start, he came almost running past us, in his delight, and said to a friend, "I never was so sure about anything, in my life, as this Musjid." He has grown a great deal since we first saw him saddling on the hill at Ascot, and wrote of him thus: "His hocks, gaskins, back, and everything are very grand, and, if we mistake not, there is both a Cup and a Derby horse there." What we rather dreaded, then, was a slight tendency to be weak in the knees; but he seems to have got over that, and to have lost power behind the saddle. It is rather remarkable that the two great Rawcliffe horses should, in succession, have got a winner of the Derby at their first essay. Musjid's dam Peggy has been anything but a lucky mare; and this year she has had a black filly to Rataplan, and is, we believe, covered by him again.

The Derby race was not a very interesting one till just at home. With a proper jockey on Promised Land, who would have trusted to his speed to finish, and not tried wildly to force the pace, as if he was a Teddington, he would have given Musjid all his work to win. Half-amile from home, Trumpeter was evidently uncomfortable, going quite short, as if he was " feeling," and we quite gave him up. Three Day horses in the first four was something like Turquoise's Oaks year, when three Days scaled in on the first three.

It was remarkable that West Australian, after being summarily shorn of his second Derby honours, should, in his first year also, have won an Oaks with his stock. Lord Londesborough's "blue and silver" has had its "in-go at last. During five or six seasons his lordship has bought three one-thousand yearlings, and two of them were never fit to be trained. Then he left Scott's for Hambleton, and built a set of new stables for Smith. That did not answer, and his stud was sold bodily: he drew his bow at a venture and caught another; and now things have come right at last, and the Oaks stakes and winnings give him West Australian,

Stockwell, and Admiral Harcourt's four (about nine or ten thousand pounds' worth of horse-flesh in all) for exactly nothing: and so it ought to be, for sporting pluck is sure to be served at last. It is getting more and more lucky to buy a lot, however bad they may seem, when an owner of race-horses sells off. Lord George sold Surplice; General Peel sold Kingston; the Duke of Richmond sold Wild Dayrell; Lord Exeter tried to sell Stockwell; and here Admiral Harcourt sold Summerside; all in their lots. And when Lord Londesborough sold his to "Mr. S. Williams," the despised Knight of Kars proved to be worth far more in Lord Clifden's eyes, than the whole lot went for, together, from Smith's. Ellerdale is remarkably versatile; and she has hit all round to Chanticleer, The Dutchman, Birdcatcher, and West Australian. She was barren to Touchstone in 1857; and last year she had a brother to Ellington; and this year, if we mistake not, she has a foal to Voltigeur, and is stinted to "The West."

Going to Ascot by the Great Western, is rather a dull affair; but still the day was so beautiful that we could not desert the old park, and Herne's Oak, and all that sort of thing. For curiosity, we wandered en route up to the statue at the top of the long walk. It has " Georgio Tertio, patri optimo, Georgius Rex" upon it, and very pretty it is too, on its rocky pedestal. The ivy clusters round part of it, a tree grows out from one side, and the rabbits burrow by dozens under it. Two very talkative elderly women in black were surveying it and the scenery in general. They recalled to mind how twenty people lunched inside the horse when it was put up; and one said to us, "You see he's pointing with his finger; he points in the direction of the cottage where he was born-that's the sequel of it." And on we went, knee-deep in the ferns, but there was not a stricken deer among them, and we did not kick up a single hare.

The horses were out for the Trial Stakes when we got there, and we were glad to see Nat canter past on Northampton. The Scott stable set at him, in their quiet way, directly after the Derby last season, and they have been too successful; and then the accident at Bath bid fair to knock him out of the saddle altogether. However, he is all right again, and we hope to live to see him give Whitewall many a good thrashing for their pains. The public are always just in the long run; and especially to a man whose honesty has been so unimpeachable during a career of at least five-and-twenty years. Newcastle looked long and light, the Annandale filly went very short, and Nimrod has long thighs, too far away from him, to give him any chance of speed. Sedbury looked very well, and those quarters of his seemed just the thing for the hill. It appeared a costly claim for Mr. Parr at Newmarket, but he has got rid of him to Newmarket again at the same price, and made rather more than £300 by his notion. This was William Boyce's third victory on him this year. It may be from its old associations with Chifney and Robinson, but we hate seeing anything but men "up" on the Heath. Brother to Sidney was a good deal looked at; but "a great coach horse," with an epithet, was the only commentary on him in more than one quarter. His temper is a little queer; his joints are immense, but he is more of a great four-cornered frame of a horse than a racehorse; and he had a very clever-looking Cossack to meet in Gamester, who is rather short, and reminds us, in his quarters, somewhat of KingsPhantom is a very curious mixture in his look of the Dutchman and Orlando. Before the Biennial began, we strolled down the carriage

ton.

line, which was fertile in drags. Still there was nothing delighted us so much as the one at the end, which did not belong to "the nobs," and was a pure mail coach, in colour and everything else. Mr. Morrell's did not join the array, owing, we regret to learn, to the serious illness of Mrs. Morrell. Lunching under a warm sky seems the choicest happiness you can give an Englishman; and it was delightful to note how the prowlers came forth from the stand, and roamed along the line in the hopes of being invited to pressed beef and pigeon-pie-joys on the roofs. Every year the luncheon becomes more systematic; and there were a quiet, fat old couple, who built up a table across their phaeton, and went solemnly to work under a blue umbrella. It was to the eye a somewhat Barmecide feast for a phaeton; only a little bit of lamb, a lettuce, and three or four eggs. Well might they lack visitors! Still they ate as consequentially as if Gunter, or Fortnum and Mason had been the purveyors. The fun of the day was the improvisatores; and two of them really very fairly, and created a good deal of laughter by

did

"My little extempor charf."

smooth-faced one, male

They hit the sweet-hearts hard; but if any or female, put a hand to his or her face, it was always

"To see if the whiskers grow,"

There was more vigorous

till we really grew tired of hearing it. laughing lower down the rails, at the activity of the "bobbies," when people would cross. One gave hot pursuit, but just missed his man ; and another over-reached himself so, in a desperate effort at a capture, that he whirled round, and finally settled into a sitting posture on the sward. They did not care to come near the "extempor charf" man, as his cook-and-mutton allusions were terrible to hear. As for The Gong Donkey," he was there, but he had to hide his head; and the gipsies did very little.

Lupellus, breathing his own Berkshire air, looked in pretty fair spirits before the race; although many thought him stale, and not very bright in his coat. He seems much more like a stayer than a T Y Č horse, and not so big out as in the stable. The golden-coloured Merrimac had a very great ring round him, when his owner saddled him; and he stood up as proud as Lucifer. He is very blood-like and full of quality, and has hit exactly his sire's head; but he is rather a lofty flat-catcher, and rather back in the knees. Twang is not very long, but well ribbed up; and we did not dislike Gang Forward, who is of the Gamester school. Viatka is an odd and very light chesnut, and, like her family, of a somewhat peaky style. He was so remarkably built himself, that we cannot expect them to be very true; but still none of them inherit his early Suffolk-Punchiness. There was one of them, we forget which, looking full six years old; and King of Diamonds was one of that rather four-cornered sort, of which so many seem to carry the Baron's colours. Thormanby is rather coltish and unfinished; and no one would suspect him to be the flyer he is. There is no Windhound or Melbourne about his cut, and we should rather have fancied him a Birdcatcher.

The Vase had but little interest, and a Day won it, as they have done so often. Leamington, so great over the flat at Chester, did not care for such an up-hill-and-down-dale course, which he does not look the horse to climb. Black Tommy blew as if his heart would break when