Grand Prix

“ The Grand Prix is the only race at which you are generally sure to win money. You can do this by simply betting against the English horse. The English horse is generally the favorite, and of late years the French horse-owners have been so loath to see the blue ribbon of the French turf go to perfidious Albion that their patriotism sometimes overpowers their love of fair play. ”

“ In France, where the possibilities—commercial and practical—of the small car were first foreseen, the great motor race of the year, the Grand Prix of the Automobile Club de France, is now preceded by a Grand Prix des Voiturettes, and the result of the 1908 contest is a striking illustration of the speed and reliability of which some of these little vehicles are capable. ”

“ You have seen people during Horse Show week in New York waiting in the hall at Delmonico's for a table for a half-hour at a time, but on Grand Prix night you will see hundreds of hungry men standing outside of the open-air restaurants in the Champs Élysées, or wandering disconsolately under the trees from the crowded tables of l'Horloge across the Avenue to those of the Ambassadeurs', and from them to the Alcazar d'Été, and so on to Laurent's and the Café d'Orient. ”

“ As to the more aristocratic sport of horse-racing, we have already seen that the annually-recurring Grand Prix de Paris has been elevated to the dignity of a capital municipal institution. But it was early recognized that this diversion, which has attained such extraordinary development in the capital within the last twenty years, owed a very considerable proportion of its popularity to the facilities which it offered for gambling. ”

“ Grand Prix night is a fête-night in Paris—that is, in the Paris of the Boulevards and the Champs Élysées—and if you wish to dine well before ten o'clock, you should engage your table for that night several days in advance. ”

“ The race-course was opened on the last Sunday in April 1857, and the first Grand Prix was run in 1862, when the Ranger won.
The moving spirit in the institution of this race, now the richest in the world, is said to have been the Emperor Napoleon the Third, represented by the Duc de Morny, the creator of Deauville. The first Grand Prix was worth £4000 and an objet d'art; the amount of the stakes for the same race in 1909 was some £16,000. ”

“ Even those whose passion for the races is well developed will easily find a method of being present at the Grand Prix without domiciling themselves among us. They will only pass through; we shall see them no more. The essential point is, therefore, to watch with the utmost care, every day, that Paris shall never lose in their eyes its prestige and its attractions. From this will ensue, if we wish to deduce from it, practical regulations for the administration of the great city. ”

“ Neck to neck they stood, a splendid showing of satin and shine from fetlock to forelock, equine beauty enough to gladden a sporting man's heart, and all five were away before Miss Malines was even sure which one was the great Grimace.
From the first the favorite's nose was to the good. His shapely body followed, and when the horses came in sight again beyond the right-hand hedge, he had put four lengths between himself and the others. The winner of the Grand Prix had all the field with him. ”

“ In 1911 began a new series of races for the Grand Prix of the Automobile Club of France in which each manufacturer was allowed to enter up to three cars, and there was no limit to the number of manufacturers of any one nation. ”

“ Thirty-four Fast Cars Ready for Europe's Big Speed Contest.
PARIS. June 25.—-Crowds of people are leaving Paris for the Sarthe circuit, where the Grand Prix automobile race will be started at 6 o'clock to-morrow morning. The contest is the chief international motor speed test of Europe, succeeding the international cup event from which France withdrew owing to the entries from each country being restricted to three. The regulations governing the Grand Prize do not limit the number of entries from any country. France has twenty-five entries, Germany three. ”

“ In 1717, the Royal Academy having elected him a member on his work for the Grand Prix, he remained in Paris, instead of proceeding to Italy, exhibited at all the salons, and filled successively every post of academical distinction. ”

“ Nowadays the race known as the Grand Prix de Paris marks the close of what people are pleased to call the season. Under the July Monarchy it was the "Fete du Roi" with its firework display, and its official receptions, which were tiresome to the last degree. Revolutions may succeed each other, governments may change, but all the tiresome things go on for ever. ”

“ The manager of the one piles up a fortune as surely as the director of the other, and in both cases the money seems to be made with an almost mathematical certainty and regularity. They tell of one day—that of the Grand Prix of 1877—when Saffery, the Steel of the French turf and the leviathan of bookmakers, cleared as much as fifty thousand dollars. Wright, Valentine, Morris and many more make in proportion to their outlay. ”

“ During the first 23 years of the Grand Prix (owing to the war the race did not take place in 1871) the stake fell to English horses—if Kisber and Foxhall be included—on twelve occasions, and generally to English jockeys. In recent years, however, French owners have held their own. In not a few respects racing is managed more judiciously than in England. The courses, for one thing, are better tended and maintained. ”

“ Down in the city, the Café de Paris has the crowd corresponding to that at Armenonville, in the Bois. Durand's, Paillard's, Voisins, the Ritz, the Elysées—all have their quota of the patronage, and a host of restaurants less famed in social annals accommodate the lesser folk of the Grand Prix multitude. Everywhere there is eating, drinking, and making merry, and one [Pg 75] gives no thought to dying on the morrow. ”

“ A war of words has ensued between Admiral Rous and Viscount Daru, the respective presidents of the two societies, in the course of which the admiral has urged that as English horses are admitted to only two races in France, the Grand Prix de Paris and the D [/e] auville Cup, while French horses are at liberty to enter upon any course in England, it is quite time that a reciprocity of privileges were recognized, and that racers be put upon an equal footing in the two countries. ”

“ Thirty thousand people rushed to hear the Spanish students play on the guitar in the garden of the Tuileries. Twenty thousand go every Sunday to the Salon during the period that it remains open. One hundred thousand go out to the races on ordinary days, and twice that number attend the Grand Prix. ”

“ The three-year-olds in France this season do not appear, with two or three exceptions, to be more than moderate, the best of them all being Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt’s Prestige, a colt by le Pompon (bred by M. Edouard Blanc) who has won all his engagements, seven as a two-year-old and four this spring, in most decisive fashion, but he is not, unfortunately, engaged in any of the “classic” races at home or abroad; the best of the others being M. Edmond Blanc’s Blue Fly who ran second to him upon one occasion, and who is in the French Derby, the Epsom Oaks, and the Grand Prix de Paris. ”

“ Among other professional distinctions Henner also took a Grand Prix for painting at the Paris International Exhibition of 1900. He was made Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1873, Officer in 1878 and Commander in 1889. ”

“ It will be remembered that the French Automobile Club organized the present prize on account of the dissatisfaction caused in Franco by the regulations of the Gordon-Bennett cup match. In that race each country had the right to enter three automobiles. ”

“ Personally speaking I have a great deal to do with racing,—in fact I am devoted to it. I am always present at every great race,—I never miss one; I always bet, and I never lose! And now let me proceed with your social plan of action. After winning the Derby you will enter for a yacht race at Cowes, and allow the Prince of Wales to beat you just narrowly. Then you will give a grand dinner, arranged by a perfect chef,—and you will entertain His Royal Highness to the strains of ‘Britannia rules the waves,’ which will serve as a pretty compliment. ”

“ An hour before the race was due prudent spectators took their seats on the roof, and those who dallied over the horses in the paddock arrived aloft to find the passage to the top choked with waiting people. For some time previously the racing world had been divided into two sections, one section declaring that John M.P. would not get the course—not half of it, said a subdivision of this section—the other section believing that he would make light of the jumps and win with ease. But the unexpected is always lying in wait upon competitors in the Grand National. ”

“ A race over, the successful owner and jockey are seized and carried shoulder high to the bar behind the grand-stand, where winners and losers alike have preceded them to secure a glass of champagne at the owner's expense, with which to drink his health and show a befitting sense of joy at the victory which has just been achieved. ”

“ It would be instead, a play—a tragedy of commercialism with each hired man striving for death of his rival commercially, showing no mercy, no quarter, because the winning car is placed on a pedestal in a Grand Marque; because the world places an enormous financial premium on its success and supremacy must be obtained at all costs. ”

“ During the three days of the Fair, football matches, running races, and horse races were in almost constant progress before the grand stand, and at night crowds from the various factories and shops filled the side-shows, and thronged the swings and the merry-go-round. ”

“ When the race is nearly run out, it is as good as the race to him to see the flutter among the pins, and the change in them from dark to light, as hats are taken off and waved. Not less full of interest, the loud anticipation of the winner’s name, the swelling, and the final, roar; then, the quick dropping of all the pins out of their places, the revelation of the shape of the bare pincushion, and the closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics and Keepers, in the rear of the three horses with bright-coloured riders, who have not yet quite subdued their gallop though the contest is over. ”

“ What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is most cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and that the trotting horses of America beat the world? And why should we have expected that the pick—if it was the pick—of our few and far-between racing stables should beat the pick of England and France? ”

“ And not only boys, but men also, old and young, and girls of all ages into the bargain. Prizes were offered for tennis, baseball, rowing, swimming, running, and every imaginable type of athletic feat. But usually the interest of the day centered on a free-for-all race of one mile, which everyone enjoyed, and a great many people entered. A prize of twenty-five dollars was offered to the winner of this race, and also a silver trophy cup with little wings on its handles. ”

“ I confess that motor racing appeals to me as the greatest sport evolved by man. Competitive effort for any reward except the gain of money is exhilarating and ennobling to the individual character. The curse of commercialism is the ruin of every sport and any degeneracy of motor racing as a sport is due to the financial issues new involved in each race—the immense value of victory and the commercial disaster of defeat. ”

“ Horse-racing has so long figured in the eyes of the unlearned in turf matters as a "pastime," that the idea of there being any "business" to transact in connection with it has often drawn from persons, who know no better, an expression of surprise; but before any race meeting can be advertised, or any race be run, much work of a thorough kind has to be got through, the whole machinery of racing has, in fact, to be evoked. ”

“ Another point in judging, not generally known, is, that every race terminates at the winning-post, and that it is not the horse which is first past the post which gains the victory, but the animal which is first at it. This great fact in racing arrangements has led thousands into error, and into asserting that a horse had won when in reality it had not. ”

“ Men and women ran from the gates to the stands, although it was more than three hours until the race was to start. When the anxious early ones arrived and saw the magnitude of the grand stands and bleachers they were at a loss to choose a seat. ”

“ Bold innovators have seen a vein to be exploited in the racing mania, and the game of the miniature horse race, an always popular pastime at bathing resorts, is only one of the more happy forms given to true races with a view of prolonging the excitement of betting, of the unexpected, and of chance, at times when genuine racing could be done only with difficulty and would attract too small a number of persons. ”

“ Fred had never used the spur; he needed but to slack the reins—away dashed the little gray, gaining at every stride upon the old horse. It is our turn to cheer! The Major begins to think seriously of his fifty dollars, when, in an instant, the fate of the game is changed. The little gray stumbles; he has put his foot in a hole—he staggers, and with difficulty recovers himself. The big horse must win. Now for whip and spur! Neck and neck, in they come—and which has won the race? ‘Well, sir!’ said the Major, ‘slick work, wasn’t it? ”

“ On arriving home our sportsman goes to his shelves and takes down the last annual volume of M'Call's Racing Chronicle and Pocket Turf Calendar, and looks up Peace on Earth in the index. He turns up the record of one race after another, and finds that the horse has a better past than he had remembered. He cannot make up his mind what to do. He looks over several weekly papers to see if any of them can throw light on his difficulties. Each of them names a different winner for the big race. ”