THE RACING STUDS OF ENGLAND.

BY THE EDITOR.

PART THE FIRST.-EARLY NOTICES OF NEWMARKET.

THOUGH it is my purpose to confine these papers to the present condition of the great nurseries of the British Turf, still, its metropolis, the source whence nearly all the matériel of racing has been derived, claims some brief retrospective allusion. It is true, little novelty can be offered in any reminiscences of Newmarket; nevertheless, it will be, as I believe, convenient to bring into one available notice much matter of interest, so diffused as to be out of the reach of the general reader. The constant and important reference to our national sports, which pervades the works of writers on the social history of this country, confers upon them, by implication, a lineage, imposing from its great antiquity. Now, by many degrees, the most influential of those sports are the Turf and the Chase; neither of which can date its true origin farther back than about a century and half. The chase of wild animals, by the dog, was, no doubt, known to the inhabitants of this island when they were savages, and "horse-coursing" was probably introduced at the time of the Roman invasion; if it were not practised even before that epoch. But fox-hunting, as pursued at this day, was in its infancy at the beginning of the eighteenth century; and racing, from the crude beginnings of Smithfield, Enfield Chase, and Hyde Park, through the indications of order exhibited in the reign of Charles I., had not assumed an organized system, or attained a code of rules, formed on a scale suited to bring horses together upon principles of reason and science, till the Restoration. To Charles II. we are indebted for the Turf as we now find it; and, with the merry monarch, we will pay our first visit to Newmarket.

The palace, which occupies the centre of the present town, was built by James I., and around it grew into a village that which was a hamlet in the reign of Henry III. This royal residence became the abode of Charles II., and attached to it were the stables in which he kept his stud. No spot of England could have been found so naturally fitted for all the purposes of racing. The wide heath, with its velvet sod, on one side, for running; the swelling hills, on the other, for training; and the shel-tered valley between, for breeding and rearing blood stock, combined to render it, in every way, complete and perfect. It was here, under the countenance, and at the suggestion, of Charles, that the foundation of the rules and regulations for the Turf, now acted upon, was laid. The Turf, indeed, owes its legitimate origin to this monarch; for, although James I. encouraged the sport of racing, and turned himself to the subject of breeding, in which latter pursuit his example was followed by Cromwell, still, to Charles II. we owe the first thorough-bred horse of which we possess any authentic records. Here, I assume that the term "thorough-bred" applies only, as it is conventionally -understood, to horses of a pure Oriental descent. That such is the

case, or that it ought to be so, I by no means contend. If it were imperative, half the pedigrees in the "Stud Book" would shew the bar sinister. A line traced, unbroken, having an Eastern stallion for its root on the part of sire and dam, up to the commencement of the last century, is as high a standard of legitimacy as need be required.

To return to the village of Newmarket, now putting forth the buds of promise that ever spring from the sunshine of Courtly favour, we find, towards the close of the reign of Charles II., that it possessed a considerable supply of Oriental blood. The D'Arcy family were large importers of Eastern mares; and their celebrated White and Yellow Turks also appeared at this time. Added to the Royal mares and stallions introduced by Sir John Fenwick and Sir Christopher Wyvill, Masters of the Horse to Charles, a goodly stock was thus provided, its early fruits being the celebrated Dodsworth-generally regarded as the first thorough-bred horse foaled in England-Hautboy, Why-not, Brimmer, and others. The taste for breeding had already spread fast; and in Yorkshire, particularly, efforts were made, about this time, to improve the indigenous race. Sir William Ramsden was conspicuous among those who turned their attention to this national care, in that quarter; and to him we owe Basto, the best and finest of all the early racers he first appeared at Newmarket in 1707. A quarter of a century before, however, several private individuals were importers of foreign sires, as the names of many sufficiently prove; viz., the Helmsly Turk, the Taffolet Barb, the Lister Turk, &c.

With the commencement of the eighteenth century, we come to the true era of British racing, and some of the most distinguished horses in the annals of our Turf. It is not my purpose to deal with their performances in this place. A few early notices of Newmarket, as a preface to its present state, is the extent of my design; and some of these I have copied from a series of memoranda attached to a plan of the heath, published in 1787, by a person of the name of Bodger.

"About the year 1721, Devonshire Childers ran a trial against Almanza and Brown Betty; carried 9 st. 2lb., R. C., in 6 min. 48 sec.; B. C., in 7 min. 30 sec.; leaped ten yards, on level ground, with his rider; and, it is supposed, covered, at every bound, a space of twenty-five feet, which is at the rate of more than forty-nine feet in a second. On 29th August, 1750, the Earl of March, and others, ran a match of nineteen miles within the hour, for 1,000 gs., with a carriage and four horses, which was performed in 53 min. 27 sec.; each horse had a rider on him, and a person in the carriage. In April, 1754, Mr. Corker's bay mare went 300 miles, in 2 days 16 hrs. 20 min.; three days were allowed. In May, 1755, a cart was drawn 250 miles, in 23 hrs. 5 min.; the driver weighed eighteen stone, and was allowed four horses to do it with; £200 to £50 against the performance. April and May, 1758, Miss Pond rode one horse 1,000 miles, in 1,000 successive hours, for a wager of 200 gs. In a few weeks afterwards, Mr. Pond rode the same horse 1,000 miles, in two-thirds of the time. On 27th June, 1759, Jennison Shafto, Esq., went, with seven horses, fifty miles, in 1 hr. 49 min. 17 sec. On 14th May, 1761, Mr. John Woodcock started, to ride 100 miles a day (on any one horse each day), for twenty-nine successive days, for 2,000 gs. (a match made between Mr. Shafto and Mr. Meynell), which he performed in 28 days 5 hrs. On

NEWMARKET FIRST AND SECOND SPRING MEETINGS. 405

30th May, 1761, Thos. Dale rode an ass 100 miles, in 22 hrs. 30 min. On the 4th December, 1786, Mr. Hull's Quibbler carried a feather twenty-three miles in 57 min. 10 sec."

The most gratifying feature in the above, is its total silence upon the infamous match, said to have been run in 1712, by the celebrated Tregonvil Frampton, to which I refer, merely to express my indignant discredit of the story. In later days, Newmarket Heath has not been the scene of many sporting matches, save those actually connected with the Turf. My space will only permit a brief allusion to one, the most recent; and that for the purpose of examining the truth of the conventional cry-the degeneracy of modern men, and modern horses. Somewhat less than a century since, Mr. Shafto, as was seen, did fifty miles, in 43 sec. less than 1 hr. 50 min. The best equestrian performance of the present century, was Mr. Osbaldeston's match of 200 miles, over the R. C., which were accomplished in 8 hrs. 40 min. Taking these to be the crack things of their respective eras, the reader will decide how far equestrianism has degenerated. Should he find a difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, he shall be supplied with still more positive data in the next number, wherein I design to lay before him NEWMARKET AS IT IS.

NEWMARKET FIRST AND SECOND SPRING MEETINGS.

"Ex nihilo nihil fit."

66

My experience of these spring anniversaries, which has been tolerably extensive, affords no remembrance of any so utterly "flat and unprofitable" as the meetings to which this notice applies. In point of attendance, and general eclat, the first of them was even brilliant ; but of matter arising from the week's running, it had no solitary item bearing upon the great events of the season. As to the second, I claim licence to be silent touching its demerits, on the strength of the old adage" de moribundis nil-nisi bonum :" and I regard it as unequivocally on its last legs." In this brief summary of the racing to which they gave existence, my only hope of carrying the reader with me, rests upon the little extrinsic interest that I can bring to bear upon a truly barren subject. . . . . The First Spring Meeting could hardly be said to have begun in earnest till the 5th ult., so many of the leading men being absent to witness the Cup Race at Chester, on the 4th. The muster to see the 2,000 Guineas Stakes ran for, and His Royal Highness Prince Albert at the same time, filled the town, on Tuesday, to a bumper. The Prince did not come, and the Stakes turned out a foregone conclusion. Crucifix, with a fraction less than 6 to 4 on her, won in a canter; making a sorry shew of the two Derby favourites. Since the Craven Meeting, Angelica had run a trial of great promise, and I never saw more confidence than both trainer and jockey manifested. His speed, I know, they had ascertained to be first