A short time before the starting hour the Stewards very unceremoniously postponed this race to a day unnamed. The H E I D E L B E R G Plate weights.
CUP,
3 miles, gentlemen riders, 50 sovs., and 5 guineas entrance.
M r . Wood's br g Will-if-I-Can, aged—red and black I Mr. Highett's b m Music, 6 yrs.—crimson and black cap 2 Mr.Powlett's br h Sir Charles, 5 yrs.—green and blue 3 Mr. Baillie's br h Duke of Argyle, 6 yrs.
Town
Mr. Yaldwyn's b h Blacklegs, 4 yrs.—black, pink and white ; withdrawn. M r . Russell's b g Freedom, 6 yrs.—green and gold, black cap ; withdrawn.
The four that came to the post made a capital start, and kept well together until half round the course, when Blacklegs bolted, and so lost all chance of the race. Coming to the distance, Will-if-I-Can shot a head, and w o n by several lengths, Music and Sir Charles working hard for second place. T h e winner's condition rendered it an easy victory. T h e B E A T E N S T A K E S (heats) s u m m o n e d to the start half-a dozen competitors for the first heat, but only the following two showed at the end :— Mr. Highett's b m Irish Lass 11 | Mr. Russell's br g Freedom ... 2 2
It was an easy race in both trials for the Lass, for Freedom never had the ghost of a chance. A
HACK
RACE
(heats) wound up the day's sport. A dozen started, but only two were placed.
Mr. Reid's b m Medora 11 | Mr. Highett'sb f Banker 2 2
This was almost a repetition of the running for the Beaten Stakes. Medora won both heats in a canter. There was very little money wagering, but many pairs of gloves changed hands, a m o d e of gambling to which the ladies were by no means averse, for in any contingency the odds would be altogether in their favour. T h e great defect of the meeting was over-riding and over-beating, and but little or no regard was shown to weight or condition. It was thefirsttime that silk was sported, and the riders seemed so anxious to show off their uniforms that they appeared to the spectators as so m a n y equestrian posturers instead of riders— coloured bipeds astride quadrupeds, working their bodies into every conceivable variety of position of which the h u m a n frame is capable, whilst their limbs wantoned in the most extravagant eccentricities of action. They evinced an utter recklessness of not only themselves, but the unfortunate animals they bestrode, and whether winning or losing they leathered the horses as if their arms were so m a n y threshing machines. But there was m u c h real enjoyment, for the populace went, saw, and laughed, returned home, some of them very drunk, and fewer quite sober, all comparatively in good humour. T h e special constables during the three days had a jolly sinecure of it, for, when in the humour, their "Tulip" was not a hard task-master, so that between their pay, and the countless free nobblers, and pots of half-and-half they imbibed, their only wish, in all probability, was that the three days might be extended to three hundred and sixtyfive,Sundays included, and if it happened to be a leap-year, as it was, so m u c h the better. Though there was a large ingress of settlers during the week, the nights passed quietly enough for the homely townspeople. A n occasional wayfarer, policeman, or watchman was knocked into a gutter; but, unlike the larrikinism of now-a-days, the capsized individual, instead of being half-choked or robbed, would be picked up where he fell, taken to a neighbouring tavern, and there either grogged or cashed as a solatium for contused head or offended dignity. I have described this first race meeting on the n o w famous Flemington Course with more minuteness than I should otherwise have done, through a desire to preserve in some permanent form, the particulars of an event memorable in the Sporting Annals of Victoria. Such is the why and wherefore of the foregoing narrative of the inauguration of horse-racing at a place which has become
