The annual match between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge was
played this year at Hoylake, this being the first time a northern green
was chosen for the contest. In accordance with custom the match was
decided by holes, and Cambridge won by no less than 30 holes against 7.
Oxford only won a single match, and halved another. Her captain, Mr. G.
E. Grundy, played Mr. A. G. Barry, the amateur champion, and, after
playing two rounds of the course, they had a tie. Mr. Barry’s brother
played a good match with Mr. R. H. Hill, whom he defeated by two holes.
The Mid-Surrey Club won the first foursome tournament for London clubs.
Its representatives were Mr. S. H. Fry and J. H. Taylor, who, in the
final tie, beat, by 9 up and 8 to play, Mr. W. Herbert Fowler and James
Braid, of the Walton Heath Club. The latter couple showed poor form,
much to the disappointment of their friends.
The Inter-county Tournament, arranged by the Cricketers’ Golfing
Society, was won by Yorkshire, which in the final round, played at
Walton Heath, defeated Sussex by 3 points to nothing. The winning county
was represented by Mr. Ernest Smith, the Hon. F. S. Jackson, and Mr. T.
L. Taylor; and Sussex by Mr. G. Brann, Mr. W. H. Dudney, and Mr. C. A.
Smith. Each of the former trio won his match. This was the first
Inter-county Tournament, and it was considered necessary to play it
under handicap, but it is to be hoped that on a future occasion it may
be possible to put the competitors on their merits.
Muirfield witnessed some good play at the spring meeting of the
Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Mr. Charles L. Dalziel carried
off the club medal with a score of 80, while Mr. John E. Laidlay, tied
for second place with Mr. A. W. Robertson-Durham with 83. Mr. Laidlay
won when the tie was played off. Mr. Leslie M. Balfour-Melville, another
ex-amateur champion, took 89 for his round. The course is reported in
splendid condition for the Open Championship in June.
Last year eight of the Edinburgh clubs possessing private greens
inaugurated a foursome tournament, and this year they repeated it. On
this occasion play took place on the links, at Duddingstone, of the
Insurance and Banking Club. The local club was the fancied winner, but
in the final round it was defeated by the Murrayfield Club, which, with
four strong representatives, won by a single hole.
Newcastle in County Down saw the first of the championship meetings of
the year. There the ladies of Ireland held their annual meeting, and
they showed their interest in it by turning out in very large numbers.
For the second year in succession Miss May Hezlet and her sister, Miss
Florence Hezlet, competed in the final round, and again the former won
by 2 up and 1 to play. Miss May Hezlet has now won this championship on
four occasions, and the Ladies’ Open Championship twice.
Sporting Intelligence.
[During March-April, 1906.]
Following an operation for appendicitis, Colonel Stanley Arnold, of
Barton House, Moreton-in-Marsh, died on March 14th. A prominent member
of the Warwickshire Hunt Club and of the Heythrop Hunt, the deceased was
a good preserver of foxes.
At the meet of the Quorn at Frisby-on-the-Wreake, on March 16th, the
Duchess of Sutherland met with a mishap. As hounds were moving off to
draw, her horse slipped up, and the Duchess was thrown into the midst of
a crowd of horses, carriages, and motor cars. Her Grace sustained some
injury to one leg, and had to be conveyed to her hunting quarters at
Pickwell Manor.
* * * * *
At the age of 74 years, Mr. Hopton Addams Williams succumbed to an
attack of pneumonia and pleurisy, on March 25th, at his residence,
Penarth, Llangibby. The deceased, who joined the late Mr. John Lawrence
in the mastership of the Llangibby in 1897, had since the decease of
Lawrence continued in office. He was always fond of outdoor sports, and
it is said he had not missed the New Year’s Day meet of the hounds for
close on sixty years. According to _Baily’s Hunting Directory_, we find
the family had been closely connected with the Llangibby for many years,
Mr. W. Addams Williams being the first Master, 1790–1814, while other
members held office until 1856, when Mr. John Lawrence took over office.
* * * * *
On March 29th the Rev. Sir William Hyde-Parker was presented with a
handsome silver centrepiece and a silver hunting horn in recognition of
his services for four seasons as Master of the Newmarket and Thurlow
Foxhounds, which he is giving up. The presentation took place at
Brinkley Hall, at the closing meet of the season, in the presence of a
large number of hunting people belonging to Cambridgeshire, Essex, and
Suffolk.
* * * * *
While out hunting with the Cheshire Foxhounds, on March 29th, the
Marquis of Linlithgow met with a serious accident, sustaining fracture
of several ribs, injury of the lung, and dislocation of the collar-bone.
His lordship was removed to his hunting quarters at Higginsfield,
Cholmondeley, and makes satisfactory progress.
* * * * *
The Grand National course of four miles and 856 yards was covered on
March 30th by Ascetic’s Silver in 9 min. 34⅖ sec., the previous best
being 9 min. 42⅖ sec. by Cloister, also a son of Ascetic.
* * * * *
Writing to the _Field_ of March 31st, Mr. W. B. Thornhill, Castle Cosey,
Castle Billingham, gives the following account of the remarkable capture
of a salmon: “The following may be of interest to your readers, and I
shall be glad to hear if such a thing has ever occurred before to your
knowledge. On Wednesday, March 21st, I was with a certain noble lord
trying for a salmon in this neighbourhood; he only had a trout-line with
him, and put up a single gut trace and a blue phantom; he got into a
fish, but his trout-line broke, and the fish got away with phantom,
trace, and a small piece of line. I was fishing the same water on
Monday, 26th, with a single hook and worm for a salmon. I got what felt
like a nibble and then a run. I raised my point slowly, as I did not
wish to break in a stone, when to my surprise my hook came out of the
water with a bit of gut attached. At first I thought, of course, of the
lost fish, and supposed that the gut would slip off my hook when it
became tight, but it did not. My hook had got into the loop of the
broken trace, two feet behind the fish. I saw the position then, and
played and landed the fish, which scaled 15 lb. As this seems such a
tall story, I may add that I can produce half a dozen eye-witnesses to
the fact if necessary, and vouch for it myself.”
* * * * *
In the following issue of the same paper Mr. Caryl Ramsden, writing from
White’s, relates another strange experience. “It is with no desire to
‘cap’ your correspondent’s story that I relate the following true story,
which can be vouched for by a salmon-fisher of much experience. On a
well-known beat on a Welsh river a salmon was hooked on a prawn. The
angler had a long line out, and the line broke. Standing at the time far
back on a long slab of rock, the angler had time to seize the broken
piece, and after hand-lining the fish, joined it again to the line on
the rod. Again he broke the line, and the fish was apparently gone for
ever with prawn, hooks, wire trace, and line. While he had luncheon he
told his gillie to try down again with a prawn, and although it may seem
incredible, the barb of one of the gillie’s hooks fastened itself in the
small eye of one of the swivels of the trace which was still fixed in
the lost fish. The gillie played and landed the lost salmon, and then
this remarkable discovery was made. Compare the size of the eye of a
swivel and the loop of a gut cast, and the deduction as to which is the
greater chance is clear.”
* * * * *
There was a large attendance of polo men at Albert Gate on April 2nd,
when Messrs. Tattersall sold the polo pony stud of Messrs. E. D. and G.
A. Miller. Twenty-nine lots were catalogued, and sold without reserve,
yielding an average of 137 gs., the total being 3,992 gs. Heartsease
made top price, 380 gs. Others: Mavourneen, b., 200 gs.; Sobriety, b.,
240gs.; Dolly Grey, gr., 210 gs.; Quickstep, ch., 130 gs.; Free Trader,
b., 135 gs.; Miss Gordon, ch., 110 gs.; Tintack, bk., 135 gs.;
Wallflower, br., 200 gs.: The Cub, br., 200 gs.; Miss Doris, b., 105gs.;
Number Four, ch., 91 gs.; Lady Dorothy, br., 115 gs.; Sylvia, gr., 160
gs.; Country Girl, br., 80 gs.; Winsome, b., 150 gs.; Rose, b., 150 gs.;
Miss Robinson, br., 110 gs.; Melayer, ch., 125 gs.; Blair, br., 86 gs.;
Socialist, br., 150 gs.; Radical, br., 120 gs.; Ladysmith, ch., 100 gs.;
Butterfly, b., 54 gs.; Rake, b., 76 gs.; Swift, br., 145 gs.; Life Buoy,
ch., 81 gs.; Pretty Boy, br., 54 gs.; Pretty Girl, ch., 160 gs.
* * * * *
The members and supporters of the Taunton Vale Fox Hunt and the Taunton
Vale Harriers, at a dinner held at Taunton on April 2nd, presented Sam
Brice, the retiring huntsman of the Harriers, with an illuminated
address and a cheque for £150. Brice has for some time past been the
oldest active harrier huntsman in England, and has held his position
with the Taunton Vale pack for thirty-two years.
* * * * *
As the result of injuries received when riding Seymour in the Lydd
Steeplechase at the Folkestone Meeting, on April 9th, Richard Woodland
died at the local infirmary on the following Saturday.
* * * * *
Mr. James S. Darrell, of West Ayton, Scarborough, died at his residence
on April 10th, aged 75 years. Mr. Darrell was a prominent Yorkshire
sportsman, a well-known breeder, exhibitor, and judge of hunters.
* * * * *
The executors of the late Sir James Miller have sold the famous horse
Rock Sand to Mr. A. Belmont, U.S.A., for £25,000. The son of Sainfoin
and Roquebrune, Rock Sand was bred by his late owner and foaled April
17th, 1900. He won the Derby, Two Thousand Guineas, and the St. Leger in
1903, and the Jockey Club Stakes in 1904. Of the twenty races he started
for he won sixteen, the value of the stakes being £45,618.
* * * * *
Mr. Henry Lockwood, Master of the Colne Valley Harriers, has received a
presentation from the followers of his pack on the Saddleworth side.
This took the form of a silver cup, bearing the following
inscription:—“Colne Valley Harriers. Presented to H. Lockwood, Esq.,
Master of the Hunt, by Lancashire friends.”
* * * * *
It is stated in the _Field_ that last year, on Archduke Frederic’s
Belize estates, the following were killed: 32,895 hares, 16,502
partridges, 12,611 rabbits, 10,367 pheasants, 7,112 crows and magpies,
4,137 dogs and cats, 4,048 squirrels and hedgehogs, 2,104 hawks and
falcons, 1,959 duck, 1,725 weasels, 944 polecats, 696 hinds and young
deer, 672 roebuck and 397 does, 478 snipe, 410 woodcock, 404 quail, 378
foxes, 264 stags, 126 herons, 85 martins, 84 wood pigeons, 74 wild
boars, 57 hazel hen, 47 kites, 46 bustards, 43 capercailzie, 34
waterhens, 28 badgers, 17 otters, 13 eagles, 12 wild geese, 7 wild cats,
4 owls, 3 cormorants, 1 black game, 1 eagle owl, and 2,152 various.
Grand total, 99,537 head.