BRITISH TURF. 11 



saly, a herd of mad bulls descended from Mount 

 Pelion, and ravaged the whole neighbouring 

 country. In consequence of a large reward 

 being offered by Ixion for the destruction of the 

 bulls, certain adventurous young men turned 

 their attention to the training of horses for the 

 saddle ; before that time they having been only 

 used in chariots. These men having attacked 

 the bulls on horseback, and cleared the country 

 of them, soon became insolent, ravaged the 

 plains of Thessaly, and even attacked Ixion 

 himself. At their departure from these frays, 

 the ignorant Lapitse, as the inhabitants of that 

 part of the country were called, seeing only 

 the tails of the horses and the heads of the men, 

 took them for monsters, half man half horse. 



Having given these as forming the earliest 

 records on the subject of horsemanship, men- 

 tioned in the best authorities of sacred and pro- 

 fane history, we will proceed to notice the first 

 introduction of horse-racing, which took place 

 at a very early period among the Greeks. 

 Here we must be understood as not referring to 

 chariot racing, — which already, in the time of 

 Homer, formed a prominent feature among the 

 games of the Greeks, upon all solemn festivals 

 and occasions, — but to the establishment of races 

 between horses ridden by men. 



