down for
steeple-chases: there is only an Auteuil. The other meetings in the
neighborhood of Paris--Maisons, Le Vesinet, La Marche--are in the hands
of shameless speculators like Dennetier, Oller and the rest. Poor
horses, bought in the selling races and hardly trained at all to their
new business, compete at these places for slender purses, and often with
the help of dishonest tricks. Accidents, as might be expected, are
frequent, although the obstacles, with the exception of the river at La
Marche, are insignificant. But the pace is pushed to such excess that
the smallest fence becomes dangerous. This last objection, however, may
be made even to the running at Auteuil, where the course is under the
judicious and honorable direction of the Society of Steeple-chases. The
pace is quite too severe for such a long stretch, strewn as it is with
no less than twenty-four obstacles, and some of them pretty serious. The
weather, too, is nearly always bad at Auteuil, even at the summer
meetings, and the ill-luck of the Steeple-chase Society in this respect
has become as proverbial as the good-fortune and favoring skies that
smile upon the Societe d'Encouragement, its neighbor at Longchamps. It
is not to be wondered at, then, that the English do not feel at home
upon this dangerous track. They have gained but twice the great
international steeple-chase founded in 1874--the first time with Miss
Hungerford in the year just mentioned, and again with Congress in 1877.
This prize, the most important of the steeple-chase purses in France,
amounts to twelve hundred sovereigns, added to a sweepstakes of twenty
sovereigns each, with twelve sovereigns forfeit--or only two sovereigns
if declared by the published time--and is open to horses of four years
old and upward. It is run in the early part of June. Last year, whilst
Wild Monarch, belonging to the marquis de St. Sauveur and ridden by
D'Anson, was winning the race, the splendid stands took fire and were
burned, without the loss of a single life, and even without a serious
accident, thanks to the ample width of the staircases and of the exits.
These stands were the newest and the most comfortable in the country. It
is to be hoped that the society will not allow itself to be discouraged
by such a persistent run of ill-luck, but that it will continue to
pursue its work, the object of which it has declared to be "to
encourage, as far as its resources will permit, the breeding and raising
of