SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



RACING 



The earliest mention of racing in con- 

 nexion with Middlesex is the statement of 

 Fitz Stephen, in his description of London, 

 that horses were then usually exposed for sale 

 at Smithfield, and that the merits of hackneys 

 and charging horses were generally tested by 

 matching them against each other. 1 In the 

 opinion of so high an authority as Nimrod, 

 the monk of Canterbury gives ' a very ani- 

 mated description of the start and finish of a 

 horse-race.' la Such matches must have been 

 common from the earliest times, for ' running 

 horses ' are mentioned as items of the royal 

 expenditure as early as King John's reign and 

 in those of the first four Edwards and of 

 Henry VIII. 2 



Strutt tells us that in Elizabeth's reign races 

 were called ' bell courses ' because the prize 

 was a silver bell. In proof that it was then 

 pursued without any idea of gambling he 

 quotes a Puritan writer of the period, who, 

 while denouncing ' cards, dice, vain plays, 

 interludes, and other idle pastimes,' speaks of 

 horse-racing as ' yielding goodly exercise.' 3 

 But by the close of the seventeenth century 

 we find Burton speaking of gentlemen gallop- 

 ing out of their fortunes by means of races.' * 

 During the interval public race meetings were 

 first established in the reign of James I, and 

 one of the earliest of these was held at Theo- 

 balds in Enfield Chase, the prize being a 

 golden bell, and it was not till after the 

 Restoration, when the gambling referred to 

 by Burton most probably had begun, that 

 these bells were converted into cups. 5 In 

 the following reign, horse-races were run in 

 the Ring in Hyde Park ; 6 but they appear 

 from an allusion to them in A Jovial Crew, a 

 comedy by Richard Broome, written in 1650,' 

 to have been combined with foot-races, one of 

 which Pepys witnessed in i66o, 8 and in the 

 time of Cromwell and Charles II with coach 

 races. 9 At the close of the next century we 



1 Stow, Surv. of Land. (ed. Strype), ii, App. I, 



10, 13- 



1 Nimrod, The Turf, 8. ' Ibid. 



Strutt, Sports and Pastimes (ed. 1903), 36. 

 Anatomy of Melancholy, (Ed. 1893) ii, 174. 

 Strutt, Sports and Pastimes (ed. 1903), 36. 

 Ibid. 



' The Turf, \ \ ; London Past and Present, ii, 250. 

 * Memoirs of Samuel Pepys (ed. Lord Braybrooke), 

 i, 131. 



9 Evelyn, Diary (ed. 1902), i, 34.5. Cf. London 

 Past and Present, 250. Among the curiosities of 

 racing in Middlesex is a swimming race between 



also find a description of ' matches ' and sweep- 

 stakes races in Hyde Park in the Sporting 

 Magazine for 7 February 1796. 



Queen Anne, whom Mr.Hore describes in his 

 History of the Roya I Buck hounds as being ' every 

 inch a sportsman,' 9l encouraged horse-racing 10 

 and ran horses in her own name ; n and her 

 husband, Prince George of Denmark, seems to 

 have taken interest in the breeding of horses. 12 



One of the first acts of her reign was to 

 expend 686 in fencing the meadows adjoining 

 the barge walk in the Home Park at Hampton 

 Court in order to preserve ' Her Majesty's 

 studd there from being killed or drowned.' 13 

 The royal stud here alluded to, the paddocks 

 of which lay, until its final dispersion a few 

 years ago, behind the brick walls on either 

 side of the road separating Bushey Park from 

 the Home Park, had already existed in the 

 reign of William III, U and its development 

 during the reigns of Queen Anne and her 

 successors may be said to be the most 

 important event in the history of horse-racing 

 in Middlesex. 



The efficiency of the stud seems to have 

 been fairly maintained throughout the first 

 three reigns of the Hanoverian dynasty. 15 

 The Treasury Papers for 1724-5 contain the 

 statement of the 'case of Richard Marshall, 

 Esq., Studd Master, in regard to his allowance 

 for keeping the Studd,' showing the terms on 

 which he had kept it ' during the time of 

 King William, the Prince of Denmark, Queen 

 Anne, and his present Majesty (George I),' 

 and the loss he had sustained since the grant 

 by the House of Commons of the park and 

 meadows to the Duke of Somerset 'by reason 

 of the great quantity of hay ' which he had 

 been forced to buy instead of that which he 

 had formerly obtained from the meadows. 16 

 He appears from this to have received eventu- 



two horses from Tyler's Ferry to the Bridge in 

 Hackney Marsh on 13 August 1737, described in 

 Robinson's Hist, and Antij. of Hackney, the winner 

 of which came in two lengths ahead. 



" J. P. Hore, Hist, of the Royal Buckhounds, 225. 



10 Records of the Chase, 26. 



11 Law, Hist, of Hampton Ct. iii, 334. 

 " Ibid. 



" Treat. Papers, Ixxx, 130, 6 July, 1702, and 

 Ixxxv, 89, 1 6 July, 1703; cf. Law, Hist, of Hampton 

 Ct. iii, 172-3. 



11 Law, Hist, of Hampton Ct. iii, 334. 



u Ibid, iii, 334, 335. 



" Cal. Treat. Papers, cclii, 326, no. 29, 3 Mar. 

 1724-5. 



263 



