VARIOUS RACES 281 



exertions in the first race. Mytton rode 14 st. 7 lbs. 

 and Trevor i 2 st. 



Now that steeplechasing of a kind had been fairly 

 set on foot matches took place everywhere, the horses 

 being for the most part ordinary hunters, and the stakes 

 small. In April 1823, for instance. Captain Marks 

 and Messrs. Hamilton and Jeffery, of the Snowdon 

 Hunt, rode a steeplechase near South Mimms, each 

 of the competitors taking a different line, Captain Marks 

 proving to be a somewhat easy winner. I have before 

 drawn attention to the fact that the times o-iven for 

 the races run over long courses of eight, ten, twelve, 

 and more miles appear to be exceedingly fast, and it 

 must be remembered that these races were not run over 

 galloping courses which, if big, were carefully prepared 

 and flagged, but over a natural country, where fences had 

 to be taken at a moderate pace, and over which men 

 had to look where they were to go next. There is, 

 however, one curious fact which I have noticed in 

 examining all the old records, and that is the pace, almost 

 without exception, works out to about sixteen or seven- 

 teen miles an hour. No matter whether the races were 

 run near London, in the north, the south, the west or 

 the east, men are reported to have made their way over 

 rough countries for sometimes twenty miles at an average 

 pace of a mile in less than four minutes, for forty, fifty, 

 and even for seventy minutes or more at a stretch. Per- 

 sonally I should not have deemed such a feat possible, 

 and the only curious thing is that the same rate is reported 

 from so many different places a great distance apart. One 

 explanation may be that the distances actually covered 

 were less than those intended to be covered, and that 

 men in one district hearing that there had been an eight- 

 miles steeplechase in another county, determined to have 

 one in theirs of the same length, but both courses being 

 a short measure the times tallied as nearly as may be. 



