8 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



to congregate, should conceive the notion of forming 

 themselves into a body apart, so that they might gain 

 that strength which union gives, and have at New- 

 market, as well as in London and elsewhere, a place 

 of their own, to which not every blackguard who could 

 pay a certain sum of money would have as much 

 right as they to claim entrance ? 



And, then, it has been reasonably conjectured that 

 they were influenced by another consideration. Since 

 the advent or accession of the Hanoverian kings, a 

 sort of vacancy had been created at Newmarket. It 

 is true that George the First had paid a visit to New- 

 market on October 4, 1717, and perhaps at some 

 other time or times ; and it is true that King George 

 the Second had kept a * one-eyed grey Arabian ' at 

 Hampton Court, at the service of his loyal and dis- 

 loyal subjects, for the usual ' consideration ' ; but, as 

 a rule, the Hanoverian kings had not given that coun- 

 tenance to horse-racing and to Newmarket which had 

 been vouchsafed by the Merry Monarch and his im- 

 mediate successors, the austere William even, and 

 the good Queen Anne, of whom the latter would run 

 her horses not only at Ascot also but at so distant a 

 race-ground as York. Indeed, it has been propounded 

 that in the days of ' Old Eowley,' whose name is per- 

 petuated by the E. M. (Eowley's mile) at Newmarket, 

 there had been, to all intents and purposes, a Jockey 

 Club of which the King was himself the head and 

 front, and of which his horse-loving and horse-riding 



