The V.A.T.C. was originally formed in 1876 by a number of enthusiastic riders and owners, whose opportunities for amateur jockeyship were too restricted for their vaulting ambitions. The promoters were the Messrs. Hector, Norman and Arthur Wilson, J. O. Inglis, Herbert and Robert Power, and others, and so well have their affairs prospered on that beautiful course at Caulfield that the original object of the Club has been entirely lost sight of long ago. It is a splendid institution. Then there is the seaside racecourse at Williamstown, which has had a long and creditable history. The course is a fine one, and is being improved yearly and the annual Cup is now worth between two and three thousand pounds. Moonee Valley is possibly the most popular of all the suburban turf resorts. Its affairs are splendidly administered by Mr. A. V. Hiskins and an influential Committee. It is so close to the General Post Office that anyone now finds it an easy journey to the entrance gates. The course is a good one, well kept, and the prizes are liberal throughout the year. The Committee is entirely up to date, and this Club, like the V.A.T.C. and Williamstown, are not only steadily increasing their prize-monies, but each and all of them gave with ready and overflowing hands to the patriotic funds. There are other and numerous—too numerous—courses within reach of the metropolis. Epsom, situated close to Mordialloc, is also a club, and its affairs are ably controlled, but Mentone, Aspendale and Sandown Park are of the nature of proprietary concerns whose surplus funds revert to the pockets of the promoters, and no doubt pay ample dividends. But with these, so far as the actual history and welfare of the Racehorse in Australia is concerned, we have nothing to do. Chapter IX. The Great Men of Old. And now that we have these accurate records to our hands of all our turf history since 1865, and with the Stud Book giving us the family tree of our thoroughbreds, so far as it can be obtained, from the present day back to the times of King Charles the Second, we can so easily, from that high perch of knowledge, take a quick, bird’s-eye view of the happenings of our own brief days in Australia. Shortly before this era of historical accuracy dawned upon our thoroughbred history, certain importations of blood stock took place which have left a deeper mark upon our annals than any other events since the arrival of the mare Manto.