OF FARKIERY. 



407 



dered, for years, the best in America. If, 

 after the decision of the referee on the first 

 match, any dispntes could have possibly arisen 

 as to the payment of bets npon it, they must 

 have been entirely cleared by Mr. Fielder ex- 

 pressing himself perfectly satisfied, and paying 

 a bet of 200/. to 100/. on the double event. 



Mr. Williams's Horse, which beat the slate- 

 coloured American, was backed to trot three 

 miles in nine minutes, for one hundred guineas. 

 It had been reported that the Horse was lame, 

 and, up to the evening before starting, six to 

 four was the betting on time, at the Tun 

 Tavern, and more than two to one was betted 

 before starting. When at speed the lameness 

 was not apparent, but the Horse was more 

 than three minutes doing the first mile, and 

 there was no increase of speed during the 

 match. The Horse broke into a gallop near 

 the George bin, when about one hundred yards 

 from home, and the pressure of horsemen was 

 so great at his heels that the jockey turned 

 him with difficulty, and the match was lost 

 by forty seconds. Some thousands were de- 

 pending on this race. 



Monday, March 19, 1822, a hackney mare 

 of Mr. Dixon, of Barbican, started at the 

 four-mile-stone on the Rom ford- road, to trot 

 thirty miles in three successive hours, carrying- 

 Mr. J. Coxeter, weighing nearly fifteen stone. 

 Notwithstandino: the heavy weiijht the mare 

 carried, she performed the di.stance in thirteen 

 minuts and twenty-seven seconds within the 

 given time. 



So long ago as 1785, a similar match was 

 made to trot thirty miles in two hours and a 

 half, and the accounts state that this was 

 accomplished, leaving four minutes to spare. 



On the 2d of February, 1829, Tom Thumb, 

 an American cob, trotted one hundred miles 



in harness (over five miles of road on Sunbury 

 Common, in ten hours and twenty-three mi- 

 nutes, and this was considered, and admitted 

 to be, an extraordinary feat. 



On the 2.5th of the following April, Rattler, 

 another American, the property of the same 

 proprietor, beat the celebrated Welsh mare 

 Miss Turner, over ten miles of ground between 

 Cambridge and Godmanchester, going the 

 distance in thirty minutes and forty seconds ; 

 and this was certainly a feat unprecedented 

 in the annals of Horse-flesh in this country. 



On the 4th of July, 1832, Rattler (drove by 

 Mr. Osbaldeston, his then master) performed 

 five miles of road between Wittlesford-bridg-e 

 and Royston, in thirteen minutes fifty-eight 

 seconds, beating Mr. Payne's Rochester, an 

 American entire Horse, whose nose touched 

 the wheel of the Squire's cart on passing 

 the winning-post : and on the Friday in the 

 July Meeting, Rattler, rode by his master, 

 beat Mr. Lawton's Driver, (a pony which had 

 recently performed seventeen miles within the 

 hour,) trotting thirty-four miles in two hours 

 eighteen minutes and fifty-six seconds. 



If, however the feat of Tom Thumb was 

 considered unprecedented, v^e have to record 

 a time-match which leaves his performance in 

 the shade — that of a mare, the property of 

 Mr. Dixon, of Knightsbridge, which bears the 

 appropriate appellation of Nonpareil, and wiio 

 went over precisely the same ground, and 

 completed the hundred miles in nine hours 

 fifty-six minutes and fifty-seven seconds! A 

 match cart had been provided for the occasion, 

 and at twenty minutes to six o'clock on Wed- 

 nesday morning the 27th of April, the mare 

 started, driven by Mr. W. Stacey, a farmer 

 residing in the vicinity of Kingston, under 

 whose surveillance she had been in training 



