HISTORY OF HORSE-RACING. \i 



Huntingdon, Suffolk, Northampton, Lincoln, and Norfolk ; 

 provided that the horses be of thirteen hands. 



By the statute of 32 Henry VIH. c. 13, 'Any person may 

 seize any horse of under-size, in manner following : he shall go 

 to the keeper of such forest, or (out of such forest) to the con- 

 stable of the next town, and require him to go with him, to 

 bring such horse to the next pound ; there to be measured by 

 such officer, in the presence of three other honest men, to be 

 appointed by the officer, and if he shall be found contrary to 

 what is above expressed such person may take him for his own 

 use. And any such keeper, constable, or other of the three 

 persons who shall refuse to do as aforesaid shall forfeit 40^.' 



Also by the same statute : ' All such commons and other 

 places shall, within fifteen days after Michaelmas, yearly, be 

 driven by the owners and keepers, or constables respectively, 

 on pain of 40^., and they may also drive the same at any other 

 time they shall meet. And if there shall be found in any of 

 the said drifts any mare, filly, foal or gelding which shall not 

 be thought able, nor like to grow to be able to bear foals of 

 reasona.ble stature, or to do profitable labours, by the discre- 

 tion of the drivers, or the greater number of them, they may 

 kill and bury them.' 



Even infected horses are prohibited from being turned into 

 such commons by the same Act, whereby it is enacted that ' No 

 person shall have nor put to pasture any horse, gelding, or 

 mare infected with the scab or mange, in any common or 

 common fields, on pain of loi"., and the offence shall be en- 

 quirable in the leet, as other common annoyances are, and the 

 forfeiture shall be to the Lord of the Leet' 



This statute had the effect which might naturally be ex- 

 pected, and furnished the kingdom with m.any stout and useful 

 horses. Carew, in his 'History of Cornwall,' supposes this 

 Act of Parliament to have been the occasion of losing almost 

 entirely the small breed of horses which were peculiar to that 

 county. It is also known to have had the same effect in the 

 Principality of Wales, where the little breed once so abundant 



