The Great Match (horse race)
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The Great Match is the name given to a match race between two of the most famous British Thoroughbred racehorses of the 19th century - Voltigeur and The Flying Dutchman. The race took place at York on 13 May 1851 for a purse of 1,000 sovereigns.
The Flying Dutchman was a 5-year-old, who had won the 1849 Epsom Derby and St Leger and, as a 4-year-old, the 1850 Ascot Gold Cup. So dominant had he been that the whip had only been raised on him on one occasion in his entire career - at Epsom.
Voltigeur was a year younger, and in 1850 had followed The Flying Dutchman's by taking both The Derby and St Leger (in a rematch after an initial dead heat). In winning the Derby, he had posted a time ten seconds faster than that of The Flying Dutchman the year previously.[1]
Two days after Voltigeur's St Leger victory, the two horses met for the first time in the Doncaster Cup. The younger horse was in receipt of 19 pounds from his rival[2] and as a result, the previously unbeaten Flying Dutchman went down to a half-length defeat, although in some ways the victory was deemed unsatisfactory. Rumours abounded that the Flying Dutchman's jockey, Charles Marlow, was the worse for drink[3] and consequently ignored instructions to wait on the colt, declaring "I'll show you what I've got under me today!" and setting a ridiculously fast pace.[4]
It was subsequently agreed that the two would meet again the following spring for a purse of 2,000 guineas, with each owner putting up half the stake.[5]