September won at Vincennes the hurdle-race Prix de Charenton; the marquis de Caumont-Laforce, whose colors were first this summer at Moulins in the Prix du Conseil-General, and in the third Criterium at Fontainebleau, as well as in the grand handicap at Beauvais last July; M.P.  Aumont, who has been not without some good luck in the provinces during the past season; M. Moreau-Chaslon, whose successes of late have hardly been in proportion to his numerous entries, though he won the last Prix des Villas at Vesinet, the Prix du Jockey Club (three thousand francs) at Chalons-sur-Saone and the Prix du Mont-Valerien at the Bois de Boulogne; and, to bring to an end our long list of devotees of the turf, we add the name of M. Ephrussi, who, amongst the numerous races in which he has entered horses in 1879, has been victorious in not a few—­for instance, in the steeple-chase handicap at La Marche, called the Prix de Clairefontaine, in L’Express at Fontainebleau, in the Prix de Neuilly at the Bois de Boulogne, and in the handicap for the Prix des Ecuries at Chantilly, as well as in a race for gentlemen riders only at Maison-Lafitte.  Besides these and others, he gained last August the Jockey Club Prize (five thousand francs) at Chalons-sur-Saone, the Prix de Louray at Deauville for the like amount, another of the same figures at Vichy, and the six thousand francs of the Grand Prix du Havre.  Most of the gentlemen last named are the owners of a comparatively small number of horses, which are, perhaps without exception, entrusted to the care of the famous trainer Henry Jennings of La Croix, St. Ouen, near Compiegne.

Henry Jennings is a character.  His low, broad-brimmed beaver—­which has gained him the sobriquet of “Old Hat”—­pulled well down over a square-built head, the old-fashioned high cravat in which his neck is buried to the ears, the big shoes ensconced in clumsy gaiters, give him more the air of a Yorkshire gentleman-farmer of the old school than of a man whose home since his earliest youth has been in France.  He is one of the most original figures in the motley scene as he goes his rounds in the paddock, mysterious and knowing, very sparing of his words, and responding only in monosyllables even to the questions of his patrons, while he whispers in the ears of his jockeys the final instructions which many an interested spectator would give something to hear.  Beginning his career in the service of the prince de Beauvan, from which he passed first to that of the duc de Morny and afterward to that of the comte de Lagrange, he is now a public trainer upon his own account, with more than a hundred horses under his care.  No one has devoted more intelligent study to the education of the racer or shown a more intuitive knowledge of his nature and of his needs.  It was he who first threw off the shackles of ancient custom by which a horse during the period of training was kept in such an unnatural condition, by means of drugs and sweatings, that at the end of his term of probation he was a