TANDEM DRIVING 



and upwards, and got the horses' mouths cleaned 

 at Slough. He had 5^ miles to do in the last forty 

 minutes, and performed it easily with eleven 

 minutes to spare.* 



The cult of the trotting horse stood high in those 

 days when so much travelling was done in the 

 saddle : there are innumerable records of trotters 

 doing their fifteen and sixteen miles on the road 

 within the hour, sometimes under very heavy 

 weights. Mr. Charles Herbert's horse, in 1791, 

 trotted 17 miles in 58 minutes 40 seconds on the 

 Highgate Road, starting from St. Giles' Church. 

 The road is by no means a level one, and the only 

 advantage the horse had was the hour selected — 

 between six and seven in the morning, when the 

 traffic was not heavy. 



A famous whip of the 'thirties was Mr. Burke of 

 Hereford — he was also an amateur pugilist of renown, 

 but that does not concern us here. In June 1839 

 he made his thirty-fifth trotting match, whereby he 

 undertook to drive tandem forty-five miles in three 

 hours. The course was from the Staines end of 

 Sinebury Common to the fifth milestone towards 

 Hampton : he did it with four and a half minutes 



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