76 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



and Oberon, by Highflyer). Unfortunately the date 

 of the match is not given, nor is any account of it to 

 be found in the public records, so that it was appa- 

 rently (as would be likely) a private match at a time 

 when there was no public racing going on at York. 

 Moreover, according to the public records there was 

 two-year-old public racing at Newmarket several 

 years before it was in vogue, either for general racing 

 or for matches, in the North. For the Craven Stakes, 

 in which two-year-olds were first officially admitted to 

 run among competitors of all ages (though two-year- 

 olds had run matches there, either one against 

 another or against older horses, as early as 1769), 

 dates from 1771 ; whereas no earlier case of two- 

 year-old running in public in the North is to be dis- 

 covered by diligent search of public records than the 

 match at Hambleton in 1779, when Mr. Coates's 

 or Mr. Burdon's ' Czarina, 8 stone 7 lb., beat Mr. 

 Hutchinson's bay colt (by Turk), bred by Mr. Pass- 

 man, 8 stone both two-year-olds,' over the cruel dis- 

 tance of ' two miles,' the Mr. Hutchinson being the 

 John Hutchinson to whom, in conjunction with the 

 Kev. Henry Goodricke, the invention of two-year-old 

 racing has been attributed. However, we know from 

 other sources that Mr. Garforth, another great north- 

 ern breeder and runner of racehorses, used to speak 

 of two-year-old racing as 'the parson's new plan.' 

 We know, further, that nobody would be likely to 

 teach a Yorkshireman anything new about horses, and 



