CHAPTER V. 

 TIII: IIF.C;IXXIXI;S OF REAL RACING AXD THE FIRST GENEALOGIES OF BLOOD STOCK. 



" I'll have the brown Bay, if the blew Bonnet ride 

 And hold a thousand pounds of his side, Sir ; 

 Dragon would scower it, but Dragon grows old ; 

 He cannot endure it, he cannot, he wonnot now run it, 

 As lately he could : 

 Age, age does injure the Speed, Sir." 



Tom D'Urfey. 



Leviores pardis equi eius et velociores lupis vespertinis et diffundentur equites eius. Equites namque 

 eius de longe venient. Volabunt quasi aquila festinans ad comedendum. 



IF Charles II. did nothing else, he certainly succeeded in building up English Racing 

 upon foundations so solid that they have not yet disappeared. The cement that 

 made them hold together at the first I have just described. It remains to put in the 

 bricks. 



The four " boy riders" of His Majesty in the first years of his reign, were 

 Peter Allibond, George Horniblowe, William Burgany, and John Smith. The usual 

 pay was 6d. a day, with board and livery free, which cost about ,20 a year 

 in addition, according to the Wardrobe Accounts in the Exchequer Rolls of 

 the time. To these is sometimes added a certain unknown " Jack of Burford." But 

 the racing was by no means limited to such " professionals " as these. The King 

 himself did not disdain to ride a match; of the fine horsemanship of his son the 

 Duke of Monmouth I have already spoken ; and the race which Evelyn saw was no 

 doubt "owners up," with "Mr. Eliot of the Bedchamber" steering Flatfoot. It is 

 almost as sinister a discovery to find the name of Felton among the gentleman riders 

 as it is later on to find that a sporting owner turns out to be Palmer the Poisoner 

 but it is most improbable that the racing courtier of Charles 1 1. was in the slightest 

 degree connected with the assassin of the first Duke of Buckingham, a nobleman who, 



