CHAPTER I



        THE REVIVAL OF RACING AT
                 JEROME PARK

       Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
       Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth.
                           Henry V, Prologue.

W      rITH the revival of racing in the East, following
V   V    the close of the Civil War, Jerome Park be-
came at once the headquarters of sport and the Mecca
of fashion. A race day furnished a brilliant spectacle
as the gay four-in-hands swung through Central Park,
A Brilliantthence to Jerome Avenue, and along the
Gathering lilac-bordered lane to the "Members' Gate"
          in stately procession and magnificence of
equipage which, according to the newspapers of the
time, "illustrated the triumph of civilization."
  At the foot of the Club-house "Bluff" the drags were
"parked," the horses unhitched, and refreshments
served on the drags from which New York's fairest
daughters viewed the racing. There was visiting from
drag to drag, as on an evening at the opera among the
boxes. Then, before the principal race of the day, the
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