Only six mares have won the Championship, and one of these took the race twice. This was Ladybird, who was a New Zealander, and who was victorious when that race was contested over in the Dominion. She was successful in 1863, as a five-year-old, and in 1865. She was not a “Queen.” Not another mare left her name on the champion roll until Quiver, in 1896, when that fine four-year-old dead heated with Wallace. Quiver was a very lengthy bay mare by Trenton from Tremulous, by Maribyrnong out of Agitation (imp.) by Orest. As a two-year-old she did not greatly distinguish herself, winning, out of three attempts, a Nursery at Flemington. At three years she also earned but one bracket, but, starting a hot odds-on favourite for the Oaks, she turned round when the barrier flew up, and took no part in the race. That was the first year of the starting gate, and the Derby, won by The Harvester, was the earliest classic race in which the invention was made use of. Horses were unused to the ropes in those days, and I can see now the look of rather sulky surprise upon the mare’s countenance at what she, no doubt, took for an abominable thing, dangled in the air beside her nose. The field, without her, went off at a slow canter, and had Moore, the jockey, set Quiver going, and followed the others, he would have had no difficulty in catching them in the first half-mile, and it is certain that Quiver would have won. As it was, the whole thing was a novelty, and Moore seemed to lose his head, and to fall into a dream. But there was a great outcry, and the “flatites” reckoned that they had been taken down. Of course, there was nothing in it. It was as a four-year-old, however, that Quiver earned her title. She commenced with the Spring Stakes at Randwick, and she followed this up with the Randwick Plate over those three long, tiring miles, beating Portsea, amongst others. Tattersall’s Club Cup, two miles, with nine stone two up, came next, and then the Essendon Stakes at Flemington, when she put down Hova, Havoc, Preston and Auraria. And the crown was finally put upon her head when the famous dead heat took place for the Championship with Wallace. The mare was sold and went to India, shortly afterwards, and there she gained further laurels.