THK HORSE IN ENGLAND TO BEGINNING OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 37 



I V'scendants of his family, which 

 was ruined by the extravagance of 

 a later member, still survive in 

 Ireland, and I believe that the price- 

 less manuscript collection of its me- 

 moirs is still in existence in New 

 York. It was in Ireland that another 

 spectator of Lord Cumberland's vic- 

 tory left many of his descendants 

 For Sir William Courtenay, a 

 xealous supporter of the Eliza- 

 bethan Turf, had been sent across St. 

 George's Channel some three years 

 before this race, to settle the 

 country and improve its agriculture. 

 He took the opportunity to found 

 immense estates there, of which his 

 family enjoyed the revenue for at 

 least two centuries. I may as well 



add here some other names of gentlemen of this reign, whose knowledge of horse- 

 breeding was sufficiently well-known for them to be selected as Royal Com- 

 missioners, with power to visit various stables. They were Lord Burghley, Lord 

 Lincoln, Lord Shrewsbury, Lord Warwick, the Earl of Bedford, Charles Lord 

 Howard, Lord Hunsdon, Sir Henry Sidney, and Sir Christopher Hatton. 



The more extended use of carriages about the time of this Commission had 

 helped to develop the " running horse " by drawing a much sharper line between the 

 animal used for pleasure and the beast of burden. In any case, a more constant care 

 had considerably improved the breed, and had very probably been of the greatest 

 assistance in bringing it to that point at which an infusion of new blood was the one 

 thing most beneficial ; for it is not a faded and worn out stock that gets the most 

 advantage from the cross of a vigorous and novel strain. 



But it was not only in Croydon or in Salisbury that Racing prospered under 

 Good Queen Bess. Both Doncaster Moor and Wheatley Moor are mentioned at the 

 end of the sixteenth century ; and an interesting Diary of 1602 has preserved the 

 fact that in a race at Sapley, promoted by the gentlemen of Huntingdon, the silver 





\\ alter Hun gerford, of Farley Cnsllf, with his 

 mid his "jfrfiif horse." 



