TIII: HOKSI: i\ KXGI.AXD TO HEGIXHING ot SEVENTEENTH CEMTRY. 29 



Thomas Ogle, " Gentleman Rider of the Stables." On another occasion iSs. 4cl. is 

 recorded as the gratuity given both to the trainer and to the " boye that ramie the 

 Harbary Horse." The name of at least one gentleman who risked his horse against 

 his sovereign's stable is given as " Mr. Karey," and Lord Dacre of the North is also 

 mentioned as sending one of his jockeys to the King, for which ,3 6s. 8d. was paid 

 him out of the Privy Purse. 



Hut in all this I can find very little trace of Newmarket as yet, and it is a long 

 journey North from London before we come to the first officially established race- 

 course on the Roodee at Chester, a place which was for long in the occupation of the 

 Roman legions, and may well have preserved a living memory of the sports they 

 introduced. In any case it was here that an annual prize was first instituted, of 

 which the Chester Cup is the lineal descendant. Modern conditions have shorn 

 that race of much of its old interest and value in the last fifty years, but nothing can 

 take from it the distinction of being the oldest regular prize upon the English Turf 

 of which we have any authentic record. 



It appears that the sports on that fair space of land on which the ancient Roman 

 walls still look down, were chietly promoted in the sixteenth century by the Town 

 Guilds of the Shoemakers, the Saddlers, and the Drapers, the former of whom had 

 for many years given "one bale of lether cauled a fout baule " to the drapers for 

 competition. In the thirty-first year of Henry VIII. the Mayor and Aldermen of 

 Chester, laying down regulations for the Shrove Tuesday sports, passed a resolution 

 that the saddlers " from hensforth shall the said tuesday houre and place gyve and 

 deliver unto the said drapers afor the mayre for the time being upon horsbak a bell 

 of silver to the value of iiis. iiiid., or above, to be ordered, as is aforesaid, by the 

 drapers and the mayre of the said citie for the tyme being to whome shall runne best 

 and furthest upon horsback before them the said daye and tyme and place; ; and 

 allsoe that every man that hayth bene maryecl within the said citie sithens Shraffs 

 teuesday last past, shall upon the said Shraffs tuesday next to come, at the said tyme 

 and place, geve and deliver unto the said drapers afore the mayre being an arrow of 

 silver . . . . " this latter being apparently a prize for archery, which was also 

 held at the same place. But the better sport soon ousted target-practice altogether, 

 and instead of shooting for a breakfast of calfs head and bacon, the Sheriffs very 

 sensibly moved with the times and substituted a piece of plate to be raced for on 

 Easter Tuesdays. This went on until it became unfashionable owing to the high- 

 handed conduct of a High Sheriff during the Restoration, who was so anxious to 



