REVIVAL OF HORSE RACING 245 



sentence of a contemporary chronicler, "seemed 

 to open its lungs and breathe again." 



For during the ten years of the great Common- 

 wealth the Turf had to all intents become extinct 

 in England. The racecourses were " overgrown 

 and choked," some had been built upon, others 

 had been converted into what purported to be 

 pleasure grounds — " spaces for the recreation of 

 the multitude." 



But apparently the multitude preferred the 

 spaces as they had been in the time of Charles I., 

 for no sooner did it become known that the more 

 important of the race meetings that had been 

 abandoned were about to be revived than "the 

 people rejoiced greatly and gave vent to de- 

 monstration." 



In a surprisingly short time race horses seemed 

 to spring up out of nowhere, some in such good 

 fettle, comparatively — when it is borne in mind 

 that the race horse was supposed to have become 

 practically extinct during the Commonwealth's 

 regime — that, as one historian has it, the severity 

 of the laws that had been passed for the sup- 

 pression of horse racing, and indirectly of race 

 horses, must clearly have been evaded in several 

 parts of this country. 



Thus it comes that soon after the Restoration 

 we read of races being run for silver bells and 

 other prizes at Croydon, at Theobald's, at 

 Chester and many other places that had been 



