RACING 



bay mare was 'thrown down by a jostle and killed, and the rider, 

 Mr. Scott, violently bruised.' Again at Loughrea, Co. Galway, 

 in August of the same year, ' Mr. Daly's Gelding was thrown 

 down in the third heat and killed by the fall.' 



Such incidents grow rarer as we look through the Calendars, 

 and twenty years later their total cessation suggests that 

 crossing and jostling had been given up in Ireland also. 



Matches formed a prominent feature of most meetings in 

 the latter half of the eighteenth century. Taking a Calendar 

 at random (it happens to be that of 1772) and turning to the 

 Newmarket Second Spring meeting, we find that the six days' 

 racing, 11th to 16th May inclusive, consisted of fifteen sweep- 

 stakes, ' subscriptions ' and plates, and twenty-nine matches ; 

 while in eighteen other matches which had been arranged 

 forfeit was paid. At most meetings the stake was usually 

 the £50 minimum allowed by law (13 Geo. ii., c. 19), and the 

 big prize of the meeting fortunate enough to secure it was a 

 Royal Plate worth a hundred guineas. Far more valuable 

 prizes might, of course, be won at Newmarket, where sweep- 

 stakes of a hundred guineas each figured at every meeting : 

 matches were arranged for any stake from £50 a side to 

 £2000 or more. In those days when enclosed meetings and 

 gate money were unknown, the greatest proportion of the cash 

 was found by the men who ran horses ; but at minor meetings 

 the authorities looked to the winner to contribute something 

 out of the stakes towards the sport. Thus at Barnet in 1751 

 the winner of each of the three races was required to pay six 

 guineas ' towards Repairing the Course, Setting up Posts and 

 keeping them in Repair.' At the Canterbury meeting of the 

 same year the winner of the County Plate, £50, was ' enjoin'd 

 to pay three guineas towards the expense attending the 

 Race, and of the City Plate, £50, ten Pounds towards a Purse 

 to be run for in the following year.' 



Reference has been made to the happy-go-lucky fashion in 

 which racing was carried on. Here is an example : at the 

 Newmarket October meeting of 1752, Mr. Edward Popham ran 



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