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Show H Lord Roberts' "Vonolel" i t-x ESPITB the automobile, the interest in the H' J J horse Is not dying; it is not even abating. K I And the horse is responding magnificently. j We have heretofore noted the work of Uhlan B in trotting to wagon in 2.01, and one day's sum- mr mary of the races at the Saratoga track by the H New York Herald gave the record of a before H,' unknown horse, The Harvester, bought for a song, Hi ,which trotted three-fourths of a mile In 1.30, Hf and of four trotters, Billie Burke, Major Strong, Hi ;Hallwarthy and Gamor, who trotted almost side HL jby side the whole round, while in the first heat HI jbamer and Hailworthy finished heads apart in Hf " 152.08, and the second heat came in neck and neck H : in 2.06, and twenty other horses did almost as H well. H But in Bit and Spur is an equestrian picture H of Lord Roberts on his horse Vonolel, accom- H panied by a copy of an autograph letter written H by Lord Roberts which we copy, as follows: H l "I bought the horse in Bombay in 1877. He H f vas a pure bred Neld Arab and was then five H , years old, and had quite recently landed from H Arabia. The following year I took him to Afghan- I r istan, where he was with me for two years, in H extremes of heat and cold, and very often with K difficulties about proper food for him, but while K'' other horses fell off in condition, from not get- H"; ting- forage, the little Arab maintained fc'a throughout. I kept him all the time I was in India and in 1893 brought him to England. He attracted great attention at the late Queen's Jubilee Ju-bilee in 1897. He died two years afterwards and is burled in the garden of the Royal Hospital, Dublin in which I resided while commanding in Ireland. "During the 22 years he was in my possession he traveled with me over 50,000 miles and was never sick nor sorry. He measured exactly 14 hands, 2 Inches. "Believe me, yours very truly, "ROBERTS, F. M." The picture shows the decoration put upon him by Victoria herself; the horse was a grey and from his height weighed probably 850 pounds. The picture is striking and the horse looks as though he thought that he and the Field Marshal were the whole show. Below the picture is the verse by Red Huzzar which, while it shows more sentiment than finished fin-ished poetry, is not bad, as follows: "From Afghanistan to Comorin, Pretoria to En- glemere, From the hour of his early coming, 'till England weeps at his bier, When the big bell swings in the steeple to -sound his passing knell, No one will more be honored, than Roberts and Vonolel." |