FAMOUS RACING MEN. 



THE FATHER OF THE TURF. 



IT is the usual practice of historians to go back into far anti- 

 quity and trace the beginnings of things. Were we disposed 

 to follow this example, we might go back to ages as remote as 

 those of Athelstane in search of the origin of horse-racing in 

 England, for Joseph Strutt, no mean authority, informs us in 

 his Sports and PcLstimes that the aforesaid Saxon monarch was the 

 first great man who figm-ed on the turf. We prefer, however, 

 plunging in medias res, and without troubling om\selves to ascer- 

 tain when and how the taste of the English for horse-racing 

 originated, shall be content with stating when it first took definite 

 shape. The Turf, as we understand the term, can hardly be said 

 to have been established before the commencement of the last 

 century, when the famous Gfodolphin Arabian, so-called from the 

 nobleman who introduced him into England, appeared upon the 

 scene, and became the founder of oru- best blood in horse-flesh. 

 Little is known of this celebrated sire, beyond the facts that he 

 measured fom-teen and a-half hands, that he was originally given 

 by a Mr. Coke to the proprietor of the St. James's Coffee House, 

 and that he died honourably, under the shadow of the Gog-Magog 

 Hills, in 1753. It is possible that he was preceded by another 

 famous sultan of the stud, the Byerley Turk, whose advent has 

 been placed at 1689 ; but this is doubtful. Our merry monarch, 

 Charles II., undoubtedly had a taste for horse-racing, and indulged 

 in it to some extent at Newmarket ; but the animals which ran 

 then were wholly different from the thoroughbreds of the next 

 century. The reign of Charles, however, is noteworthy for having 

 produced the man to whom immemorial tradition has assigned the 

 proud title of " Father of the Turf." The gentleman who earned 

 that high distinction was Tregonwell Frampton, Esquire, of More- 

 ton, Dorsetshire, who was born in 1642, and appears to have filled 

 the post of Keeper of the King's Eunning-Horses to William III. 

 Anne and George I., and possibly Charles II. and James II. 

 In an age of amateurs Frampton was essentially a professional, 

 and matched his horses, cocks, and greyhounds against those of 

 his contemporaries with a professional astuteness and skill which 



