74 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



good of the realm and its breed of horses. The nephew of that old Sir Oliver of 

 Huntingdon had sporting blood in his veins, and Hinchinbrooke, his birthplace, was 

 not precisely calculated to discourage a love for horses. Although his time, later on, 

 was mainly taken up in arduous political affairs, he might at least have given a little 

 more leisure to the mysteries of a four-in-hand before he tried to take a team through 



Hyde Park. His horses 

 ran away at the accidental 

 explosion of the pistol he 

 always carried about his 

 person. Of hunting and 

 hawking he is certainly- 

 known to have been very- 

 fond, and to have indulged 

 his humour on fitting oc- 

 I casions. But what is 

 mainly of importance for 

 our purpose is that he did 

 not let the Arab strain die 

 out. His stud-master was 

 Mr. Place, of Dimsdale, 

 and it is to Place s White 

 Turk that the oldest pedi- 

 grees of our modern 

 bloodstock can be traced. 

 When the Protector's 

 horses, which were sig- 

 nificantly reported by a 

 contemporary authority to 



Sir Thomas, Lord Fairfax, owner of " The Hclinslcy Turk!' 



By fait/tome. 



be "the best in England," 

 were in turn seized by 

 Charles II., this same Place stole a famous brood mare that had belonged to his 

 master, and from the fact that he concealed her in a vault, she was afterwards 

 known as the Coffin Mare. Nor is this all ; for the State Papers of the Protectorate 

 period reveal a definite expression of Cromwell's anxiety " to furnish England " 

 with Arabian horses. The Levant Company accordingly procured some through 



