42 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



They were all half-breds with hunters' certificates, and that 

 class of race did an immense lot of good to the breed at 

 large. The National Hunt Rules, later on, destroyed these 

 races, and no relic of them remains except at Croxton 

 Park, where a private sweepstake is run on the same 

 lines. 



Another old reminiscence of Thirsk races is the 1864 

 meeting, when I saw Hypermnestra, a four-year-old black 

 mare, 6 st. 7 lb., win the Thirsk Handicap for the late 

 William Anson, beating, among others, her stable com- 

 panions, Bonny Bell, four years, 7 st. 3 lb., and Old Orange 

 Girl, four years, 7 st. 



Bonny Bell will always be remembered as the dam of 

 Beauclerc, and Old Orange Girl as the dam of those 

 lovely fillies, Madge Wildfire and Twine the Plaiden. 



That same day when Hypermnestra won, " Sammy " 

 Cass once more won the North Riding Farmers' Cup on 

 the Jew, and the Tyro Stakes was won by Mr Leonard 

 Peckitt's two-year-old filly, Catalogue, by Leamington, 

 ridden by Martin Gurry. This I remember so well that 

 I mentioned it to Gurry year before last, without ever 

 having referred to a Calendar. Gurry was at that time 

 a boy in Gregory's stable on Hambleton. 



The race meeting in those days was supported entirely 

 by local effort. The member for Thirsk used to give the 

 Member's Plate. Aspiring politicians, on the other side, 

 would also endow stakes, and thus it happened that the 

 North Riding Farmers' Cup of 100 was given by Mr F. 

 Milbank, a county candidate. It had to be won two years 

 to retain it, but " Sammy " Cass, his chief supporter in 

 Thirsk, managed to do that after a successful objection, 

 as mentioned above. 



Children nowadays are so old at such ages as from ten 

 to twelve that it will seem no wonder at all when they are 

 able, in due course, fifty years later, to tell what they did 

 in their youth ; but in my time children associated, for 

 the most part, with children, and they did not so quickly 

 become old-fashioned. I have mentioned taking pleasure 



