io RACING. 



and ponies. When chivalry prevailed, no knight or gentleman 

 would ride a mare it was thought dishonourable and disgrace- 

 ful. No satisfactory reason has ever been assigned for this 

 absurd prejudice, but some imagine it was because the clergy 

 had in some measure appropriated the use of mares from a 

 pretended principle of humility, as they were less spirited than 

 horses. 



In the reign of Henry VII. the English had large herds of 

 horses in their pastures and common fields, and when the 

 harvest was gathered in, the cattle of different proprietors fed 

 promiscuously together, on which account the horses were 

 castrated. This was therefore the age of geldings ; for the 

 entire horses which were kept for breeding were confined in 

 stables or on lands which were enclosed. 



Under the succeeding Prince particular attention was paid 

 to the raising of a strong breed of horses, and laws were in- 

 stituted to enforce the completion of that design. 



To secure size and strength in the progeny, it was thought 

 necessary to select the sires and dams of a certain proportion, 

 size, and mould, and not to permit any mare or stallion to breed 

 except under these restrictions. A law was accordingly pro- 

 mulgated for that purpose. The Act ran thus : 



'By the 32 Henry VIII. c. 13 it is enacted that no person 

 shall put in any forest, chase, moor, heath, common, or waste 

 (where mares and fillies are used to be kept) any stoned horse 

 above the age of two years, not being fifteen hands high, within 

 the shires and territories of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Buck- 

 ingham, Huntingdon, Essex, Kent, South Hampshire, North 

 Wilts, Oxford, Berks, Worcester, Gloucester, Somerset, North 

 Wales, South Wales, Bedford, Warwick, Northampton, York- 

 shire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Salop, Leicester, 

 Hereford and Lincoln ; nor under fourteen hands in any other 

 county on pain of forfeiting the same.' But by the 21 James I., 

 c. 28, f. 12, Cornwall is excepted. 



By the 8 Elizabeth, c. 28, the statute of 32 Henry VIII. 

 shall not extend to the marshes in the counties of Cambridge, 



