HISTORY OF HORSE-RACING. 25 



•the Stud Book by the names of Darcy's White and Yellow 

 Turks, and the well-known Tregonwell Frampton. 



Of most of these patriarchs of the turf little is known 

 beyond the benefit they conferred upon this country by the 

 importation of Eastern horses, and testing the value of their 

 produce by public racing. 



Tregonwell Frampton, Esq., of Moreton, Dorsetshire, was 

 keeper of the running-horses at Newmarket to their Majesties 

 William III., Queen Anne, George I., and George II. He was 

 styled for a great number of years ' the Father of the Turf/ 

 •died on March 12, 1727, aged Zd^ and was buried at New- 

 market. 



This extraordinary character was born in the reign of King 

 Charles I., when the sport of horse-racing commenced at 

 Newmarket. He was owner of the celebrated horse Dragon, 

 who ran several times there with great success ; but the account 

 of it, and also that of his pedigree, have been for many years 

 lost. 



The story of the castration of Dragon, immediately after he 

 had won a 10,000/. match, in order that he might run on the 

 following day as a gelding for a still larger surn, has been re- 

 peatedly published, and — as the worst is always the most 

 readily believed — has obtained credence almost as wide as its 

 •circulation. The tale is, however, extremely improbable. 



There is, to begin with, very fair evidence to show that 

 Tregonwell Frampton, though he may not have been over- 

 scrupulous, was on the whole a kind-hearted man, while nobody 

 but a fiend could have been guilty of such an atrocity. Lastly, 

 though many eminent veterinary surgeons have stated that it is 

 Q^\\.Q possible for a horse to run a race immediately after castra- 

 tion, not one has been bold enough to declare that it would, 

 under the circumstances, be anything approaching to ' a good 

 thing.' Tregonwell Frampton, whatever else he may have 

 been, was certainly no fool, and not in the least likely to ruin a 

 valuable stallion and at the same time to risk losing a stake of 

 •upwards of t 0,000/. 



