1773 FIRST PEEIOD 5 



earliest days of the Club, and the Jockey Club Chal- 

 lenge Cup, and the Eclipse Foot) in which none but 

 members of the Club could run horses ; from documents 

 issued by the Club and signed by certain of its mem- 

 bers; from obituaries, in which membership of the 

 Club is specified ; and from various more or less trust- 

 worthy publications which bear witness to membership 

 either expressly or inferentially, with a probability 

 amounting almost to certainty. Be it premised also 

 that a list thus made up cannot pretend to be ex- 

 haustive, since many members would be, as is now and 

 always has been the case, sleeping partners ; but that 

 the list, indisputably, will contain the names of all 

 who were most prominent and most active, whether 

 to the advantage or the disadvantage of the Turf, and 

 of that horse-breeding for the improvement of which 

 the Turf is, or should be, in the main an indispensable 

 auxiliary. 



Now we may proceed to say a few words about the 

 foundation and the original founders of the Club. 



The existence of the Club first received public 

 notice in the ' Sporting Kalendar,' published by Mr. 

 John Pond, a sporting auctioneer (whose daughter's 

 equestrian prowess is mentioned in Dr. Johnson's 

 1 Idler '), of Newmarket and of James Street, Covent 

 Garden, London, at the end of 1751 or the begin- 

 ning of 1752. In that publication it is announced 

 that there will be run for, at Newmarket, on Wednes- 

 day, April 1, 1752, ' A Contribution Free Plate, by 



