58 The Book of the Horse 



The annals already quoted prove that while a few were engaged in breeding race-horses, 

 a great many landed gentlemen, as far apart as Mr. Pelham, at Brocklesby Park, in Lincoln- 

 shire, and Sir William Morgan, of Tredegar, in South Wales, were, between tlie years 1700 

 and 1800, improving the horses of their district by encouraging their tenants and neighbours 

 to cross the horses of the district with sires of racing blood. 



Fortunately the tastes of breeders when the British blood-horse was being manufactured 

 were not entirely directed to speed. The hunting-field created a demand for well-bred horses, 

 and for thoroughbred hunters equal to carry weight, a demand which has continued and 

 increased ever since. 



County races were often the offspring of county hunt clubs. The rivalry between different 

 counties was keen, and the taste for the blood-horse spread from squares to yeomen and 

 farmers, encouraged by the demand for swift roadsters and carriage-horses. Every provincial 

 capital, like Exeter, Salisbury (one of the oldest), Leicester, Chester, and York, had, as well 

 as its theatre, its assembly rooms, and its cock-pit, its racecourse. Yorkshire met Lincoln- 

 shire. At Holywell the Cheshire met the Welsh squires, and at Chester their Lancashire 

 rivals. There was rivalry between the Ridings of Yorkshire, and the keenest competition 

 between the North of England and South. 



Thus it was that hunting on horseback, following hounds over wild, rough, and enclosed country, 

 a sport popularised in England when the farmers of other European countries were little better 

 than serfs, contributed greatly, with racing, to distribute well-bred horses over the three kingdoms. 



In 1740, the reign of George IL, an Act had been passed for the suppression of public 

 pony races, and the discouragement of small, weak horses ; no prize for race-horses was to be 

 of less value than ;^50. Every horse of five years old was to carry ten stone, of six years 

 old, eleven, and seven years old, twelve stone. But there is no evidence that this Act, 

 probably the child of some independent member of Parliament, was ever put in force. 



Until the commencement, and well into the first quarter, of the present century, there was 

 a great deal of racing of horses which were admittedly not thorough-bred, known on the turf 

 as " H.B." (half-bred) or "cock-tails;" these when contending with thoroughbred horses, had 

 allowances in weight. The system of allowing weight to H.B.'s was eventually abolished, in 

 consequence of the opening it gave to fraud by substituting a thorough-bred foal for a 

 half-bred of the same colour ; but for a time it must have had the effect of encouraging farmers 

 to put their mares to blood-horses for the chance of getting a racer, and if not a racer, a hunter. 



" Through Childers and Blaze," says Lawrence, " descended Sampson, the strongest horse 

 that ever raced before or since his time, entitled to equal pre-eminence if viewed as a hackney 

 or hunter. Sampson was 15^ hands high, and his dimensions, as taken by his owner, the 

 Marquis of Rockingham, as follow : — 



Indies. 



From the hair of the hoof to the middle fetlock-joint .... 4 

 Fi'om the fetlock-joint to the bend of the knee . . . . .11 



From the bend of the knee to the elbow .... 19 



Round his leg below the knee, narrowest part . . . . • SJ 



Round his hind-leg, narrowest part ..... 9 



The girth is unfortunately not given, or round the fore-arm ; but these dimensions show a 

 powerful and compact blood-horse, although of no great reputation as a race-liorse. 



These particulars are interesting, because Sampson was the grandsire of Mambrino, foaled 

 in 1768, considered in his time a wonderfully fast trotter for a race-horse ; and Mambrino, 

 described by VVcalhcrby as "a very moderate race-horse," was the sire of Messenger, wlio, 



