Turf History. 13 



next half-century, and whose very whip would become 

 a coveted race-prize among the German Barons. The 

 Prince of Wales only enlivened Newmarket with his 

 presence and his practical jokes for a brief space, but 

 his love of the turf ended only with life. His Escape 

 and Selim troubles, added to the thoughtless manner 

 in which he compromised himself with the Duke of 

 Bedford, about the "first call" of Chifney, were recol- 

 lections quite bitter enough to make him adhere to 

 his '91 vow, that he would set foot on its heath no 

 more ; and even the famous North and South Matches, 

 between Hambletonian and Diamond, and Filho da 

 Puta and Sir Joshua, did not tempt him down. Ham- 

 bletonian, the greatest of the four, ceded the champion- 

 ship of the North to his stable companion Cockfighter, 

 and the name of "Darlington" began to be one of 

 dread to owners with the new century, and his Hap- 

 hazard, who set Sir Solomon, Cockfighter, Chance, 

 and every other horse north of the Trent at defiance 

 for four seasons. The racing spirit of the Tykes 

 flourished apace as the century rolled on ; and even 

 Sydney Smith, who was flung so often over his horse's 

 head into an adjacent parish that he began to consider 

 it " a great proof of liberality in a county, where every 

 one can ride as soon as they are born, that they tole- 

 rated him at all," fulminated in vain from the Malton 

 pulpit, in 1809, " against horse racing and coursing, 

 before the archbishop and sporting clergy of the 

 diocese." The most noted equestrian feats of his 

 Edinburgh Review chief, Jeffrey, seem to have come 

 off in this neighbourhood. He may or may not have 

 ridden " Peter the Cruel," but it is written of him in 

 his friend's Life, how he mounted his " little jackass" 

 in the garden at Foston-le-Clay ; and, furthermore, 

 when he went in for Malton, some one-and-twenty 

 years after this sermon, he is careful to note how he 

 " was helped up about eleven o'clock on to the dorsal 

 ridge of a tall prancing steed, decorated with orange 



