Part 7

During the first seventy years of the eighteenth century Eastern horses were imported in large numbers; there is in existence a list of 200 stallions which were sent to this country, but that number does not represent a tithe of the whole. The event of George I.'s reign, from a Turf point of view, was, of course, the arrival, in 1724, of the Godolphin Arabian, the sire to which our racers of to-day owe so much. George I. appears to have taken little personal interest in the Turf, though at least one visit paid by him to Newmarket, in October 1717, is recorded; nor does the parliamentary history of his brief reign show that much attention was given to the work of improving our horses.

The science of travel had gone back rather than forward, for in 1715 the post from London to Edinburgh took six days, whereas in 1635 it took three. At this time, and until 1784, the mails were carried by boys on horseback; and between the badness of the roads, the untrustworthiness of the boys, and the wretched quality of the horses supplied them, the postal service was both slow and uncertain. The Post Office still held the monopoly (first granted in 1603) of furnishing post-horses at a rate of threepence a mile, and its control over its subordinates was of the slightest.

The only Act of George I.'s reign relating to horses was that of 1714 (1 George I., c. 11), which forbade waggoners, carriers, and others, from drawing any vehicle "with more than four horses in length."

The omission of reference to oxen in this connection may indicate that for draught purposes on the highways they were going out of use.

GEORGE II. (1727-1760).

An important step was taken in regard to the Turf by George II. in 1740; some of its provisions will be found in Ponies Past and Present (pp. 8 and 9), but it contained other clauses of a far-reaching character. This law (13 Geo. II., c. 19) provided that every horse entered for a race must be bonâ fide the property of the person entering it, and that one person might enter only one horse for a race on pain of forfeiture. The weights to be carried were prescribed:

A 5-year-old was to carry 10 stone. A 6-year-old " " 11 stone. A 7-year-old " " 12 stone.

Any horse carrying less was to be forfeited and his owner fined £200. Every race was to be finished on the day it began, that is to say, all heats were to be run off in one day. The Act went even further. It declared that matches might be run for a stake of under £50, only at Newmarket and Black Hambleton in Yorkshire, under a penalty of £200 for disobedience. Prizes elsewhere were to be of an intrinsic value of at least £50, and entrance money was to go to the second horse.

So drastic a measure as this could not long be upheld in a free and sport-loving country; and it is without surprise we find the Government, five years later, withdrawing from a position which must have made it excessively unpopular. The next law (18 Geo. II., c. 34, sec. xi.) opens with the announcement that, whereas the thirteen Royal Plates of 100 guineas value each, annually run for, as also the high prices that are continually given for horses of strength and size are sufficient to encourage breeders to raise their cattle (sic) to the utmost size and strength possible, "Therefore it shall be lawful to run any match for a stake of not less than £50 value at any weights whatsoever and at any place or places whatsoever."

The effect of this "climbing down" measure was naturally to introduce lighter weights. Thus in 1754, to take an example that presents itself, Mr. Fenwick's Match'em won the Ladies' Plate of 126 guineas at York carrying nine stone, as a five-year-old; six-year-olds carrying 10 stone, four-mile heats; and in 1755 Match'em beat Trajan at Newmarket carrying 8 stone 7 lbs. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the Act of 1745 was the first step towards modern light-weight racing. It must be added that the scale of weights prescribed for the Royal Plates was as follows:--

4-year-olds carried 10 stone 4 lb. 5-year-olds " 11 " 6 " 6-and aged " 12 "

Races decided in 4-mile heats.

The King himself lent a somewhat perfunctory support to the Turf, keeping at Hampton Court a grey Arab stallion, whose services were available for mares at a stated fee.

A most important event in the history of the Turf marks George II.'s reign. The Jockey Club was founded, and its existence first received public recognition in Mr. John Pond's Sporting Kalendar, published at the end of 1751 or the beginning of 1752. It is probable, however, that the club was actually in existence in the year 1750; but it was started without any attempt at publicity, and, so far as can be ascertained, with no idea whatever of acquiring the despotic power which eventually came into its hands. As Mr. Robert Black, in The Jockey Club and its Founders, remarks:

"What more natural than that the noblemen and gentlemen who frequented Newmarket, where ruffians and blacklegs were wont to congregate, should conceive the notion of forming themselves into a body apart, so that they might have at Newmarket as well as in London and elsewhere a place of their own, to which not every blackguard who could pay a certain sum of money would have as much right as they to claim entrance."

The conjecture is a most plausible one; but it was not long before the Club showed that it intended to support racing in practical fashion, for at the Newmarket meeting in May, 1753, two Jockey Club Plates were given for horses belonging to members of the Club.

It is stated that, in the year 1752, sixty thoroughbred stallions, of which only eight were reputed imported Arabs, were standing for service in various parts of England; fees, as may be supposed, were low. A horse named Oronooka headed the list at a fee of 20 guineas; another, Bolton Starling, covered at 8½ guineas; but the usual charge was one, two or three guineas. Flying Childers in the earlier part of the century stood at 50 guineas, then at 100 guineas, and one season at 200 guineas.

There is little to note concerning the "Road" or other spheres of equine work during this reign. The roads were as bad as ever, and travel was so slow that in 1740 Metcalf, the blind road-maker, walked the 200 miles from London to Harrogate more quickly than Colonel Liddell could cover the distance in his coach with post-horses. The barbarous methods of training cavalry recruits at this period was attracting notice, as we learn from a little work on Military Equitation, by Henry Earl of Pembroke, which was published in 1761. The writer refers to the "wretched system of horsemanship at present prevailing in the army," and refers to the common method of putting a man on a rough trotting horse, to which he is obliged to stick with all his might of arms and legs." Most of the officers, he says, when on horseback are a disgrace to themselves and the animals they ride; and he proceeds to urge the adoption of methods based on practical common sense.

(About 1750.)]

GEORGE III. (1760-1820.)

The laws concerning horses made by the Parliaments of George III. have bearing on the subject of breeding and improvement, inasmuch as they deal with the horse as taxable property. The turf, road, and hunting history of the reign is important, the first particularly so, though the King himself took little personal interest in racing. "Give and Take" plates for horses from 12 to 15 hands were in fashion during the latter part of the last century, George II.'s Act directed against small racehorses notwithstanding. A 12-hand pony carried 5 stone, and the scale of weight for inches prescribed 14 oz. for each additional quarter of an inch; whereby 13 hands carried 7 stone, 14 hands 9 stone, 15 hands 11 stone. Hunter races were run at Ascot in 1722, and after that date the Calendar of 1762, however, is the first of the series that contains the form of "Qualification for a Hunter."

The Royal Plates were still among the most important events of the Turf; in 1760 there were 18 of these in England and Scotland, and 6 in Ireland, 5 of the latter in Kildare. The "King's Plate Articles," which appear in every annual issue of the Racing Calendars for very many years, were retained in their original form. "Six-year-olds shall carry 12 stone, 14 lbs. to the stone; three heats"; but in the Calendar of 1773 a footnote occurs, "By a late order altered to one heat." Nevertheless, very cursory inspection of the books shows that much latitude was allowed in weights, distances, and numbers of heats both before 1773 and after. In 1799 another footnote appears under the "King's Plate Articles," to effect that the conditions "By a late order are altered to one heat and different weights are appointed." In spite of this order races for the plates were on occasion still run in two or three heats, apparently by permission of the Master of the Horse. We are not informed what weight the new scale required, but the pages of the Calendar show they were reduced; authoritative information on the point appears with the Articles at a later date. In 1807 the number of Royal Plates had been increased to 23 in Great Britain.

On the 4th May, 1780, the first Derby was run; the value of the stake was 50 guineas, and the race, open to three-year-old colts at 8 stone, and fillies at 7 stone 11 lbs., distance one mile, was won by Diomed. In 1801, 1803, 1807, and 1862, the weights for the Derby were altered, always increasing by a few pounds, till they reached their present level. By 1793, the Derby had grown into great popularity. The establishment of the St. Leger, in 1776, and the Oaks in 1779, are events which also aid to make King George III.'s reign memorable. Races for Arab produce occur on the Newmarket "cards" about the time our classic races were founded; sweepstakes of 100 guineas being run for in 1775, 1776, and 1777. Races for Arabs, however, have never been continued for many years in succession.

GREY DIOMED, foaled 1785. By Diomed--Grey Dorimant.

Bred by Sir CHARLES BUNBURY, Bart.]

The accompanying portrait of Grey Diomed, a son of Diomed, the winner of the first Derby, in 1780, gives a good idea of the racehorse of this period. Grey Diomed was foaled in 1785, and won many important races between the years 1788 and 1792. He was bred at Great Barton, Bury St. Edmunds, by Sir Charles Bunbury.

It was in 1780 that Mr. William Childe, of Kinlet, "Flying Childe," introduced the modern method of riding fast to hounds. Prior to Mr. Childe's time, men rode to hounds in a fashion we should consider slow and over-cautious, timber being taken at a stand; but once the superior excitement of fast riding across country was realised, the old, slow method soon disappeared.

Though the Norfolk Hackney achieved its fame through Blaze (foaled 1733), who begat the original Shales, foaled in 1755, and the foundations of this invaluable breed were thus laid in George II.'s time, we must have regard to the period during which the breed achieved its celebrity both at home and abroad, and that period is the long reign of George III.