290 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



men who could, or who professed to be able to, 

 obtain complete control over horses and other 

 animals by the exercise solely of will power, and 

 that such men were sometimes called in upon 

 occasions when a horse had to be bound. 



It therefore seems possible that some at least 

 of the horses sacrificed in the ages before Christ 

 may first have been dazed, if not rendered un- 

 conscious, with the aid of some such agency as 

 hypnotism. 



Though the Derby and the Oaks were not in- 

 augurated until the last quarter of the eighteenth 

 century when, as Lord Rosebery tells us, "a 

 roystering party at a country house founded two 

 races and named them gratefully after their host 

 and his house " horse racing has now for many 

 years been popular in nearly every civilised 

 country, while in some of the uncivilised countries 

 it has long been included among the favourite 

 pastimes of the people. 



Thus Mr C. W. Campbell, H.M. Consul at 

 Wuchow before 1904, mentions in the report of 

 a journey that he made through Mongolia that 

 the Mongols are extremely fond of racing. He 

 adds, however, that the practice of betting upon 

 horse races was almost unknown there at the time 

 he wrote, and goes on to say that in the Chahar 



