Steeplechase at Hempstead Farms, October 21, 1893. Glenfallon passing Vanity at the In-and-out Jump by ALLEN, W.S. Vanderbilt - 1893

New York: Henry T. Thomas, 1893. Heliotype after Allen's painting by the Heliotype Printing Co. Several well repaired tears in upper left quadrant. Image: 14 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches; sheet size: 17 1/4 x 22 3/8 inches. A fine plate showing a steeplechase in Long Island in 1892 , from the nineteenth-century publication 'Sporting Incidents'. The new steeplechase track at the Hempstead Farm Company opened in 1890. Steeplechasing separated itself from flat racing quite early on and has always been the more aristocratic of the two types of horseracing, and the riders are generally wealthy amateurs, rather than professional jockeys. Published during America's Gilded Age, 'Sporting Incidents' is a portfolio of elaborate illustrations depicting equine sporting events and accompanied by H. Milford Steele's eloquent descriptions of the history and status of these activities. It was primarily intended to glorify the increasingly fashionable sports of coaching, hunting, polo and steeple chasing. In its introduction, Colonel William Jay, a founding member of the Coaching Club, extolled the beneficial effect such activities had on the health, behaviour, and moral character of both participants and spectators and explained that the "aim of the artist in this book has been to reproduce such horses and carriages with such details of their equipment as may be useful as hints to those who need them, at the same time furnishing a standard of correctness in such matters."