4:8 THE ORANGE COUNTY 



in every instance, been accorded to them. So great is the 

 superiority of the present breed of English race-horses over 

 those of Eastern extract, that no reasonable weight will 

 equalize their powers at the winning-post. 



Queen Anne patronized the turf extensively by running 

 horses, and also by annual presentations of gold cups, value 

 pne hundred guineas each, to be run for at York. George I. 

 continued the example of his royal predecessor in the pres- 

 entation of cups, and in his reign the first royal plate is 

 mentioned as having been won at Black Hambledon, in 1716, 

 by Brocklesby Betty, a mare at that time in high repute. 

 Racing, and consequently the stimulus to breed horses for 

 that purpose, when in its infancy, received a gracious impetus 

 by the presentation of royal plates. During the eighteenth 

 century the breeding of horses for the turf seems to have 

 been generally confined to the nobility and gentry of wealth. 

 The fame of favorite progenitors was a powerful stimulant 

 with them, and the desire to breed good horses more than 

 the love of gain predominated. The pursuit has now, with 

 few exceptions, become an object of speculation, and persons 

 of all classes who keep studs do so with a view to profit. 

 Still the same good intention is accomplished, and much 

 more extensively. At the lowest computation there are more 

 than five times the number of horses bred at the present 

 period than there were in the corresponding year of the last 

 century. Every breeder endeavors to produce the best 

 horses it is his ambition and his interest to do so. 



There were in those days but few mares devoted to the 

 stud. A few peculiarities of character, incidents, and events 

 connected with some of them are worthy of notice, from the 

 examples they afford in the occult science of breeding: Bonny 

 Black, for instance, bred by the Duke of Kutland, in 1715, 

 distinguished herself on the course, but did not prove a 

 good brood mare; none of her descendants were of any 

 worth, and her family is extinct. Her running was so very 

 superior that it deserves to be described: at three years old 

 she beat a six-year old horse at even weights four miles; the 

 following year, for the king's cup at Hambledon for five- 

 year old mares, four miles, without any allowance for her 

 age, she beat a field of thirty, being the greatest number of 

 horses that had been known to start for a race in those days, 

 or indeed for a long time afterwards. She won the cup 

 again at the same placerwheii five years old, beating a field 

 of fifteen; also a cup at Newmarket, beating thirteen com- 

 petitors. To account for the inferiority of h3r progeny it 



