I 3 6 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



match, than was ever known on any similar occasion. At length the important hour 

 arrived, when an event so interesting to hundreds was to be determined, and each 

 party was flushed with confident hopes of success. The horses started, the race 

 was run, and won by 

 Merlin by nearly the 

 same distance as in the 

 secret trial. Hundreds 

 who had betted their all 

 were ruined. Some little 

 time after the artifice in- 

 tended to be practised 

 by Frampton became 

 notorious, to his eternal 

 disgrace. Several per- 

 sons having been reduced 

 to beggary by the im- 

 mense sums they had 

 lost on this race, the 

 Legislature, in order to put a stop to such ruinous proceedings, enacted a law 

 to prevent the recovery of any sum exceeding ten pounds betted upon a horse 

 race." 



Evidently sportsmen were not very anxious to see this prohibitive enactment 

 passed, for the statute in which it appears is 9 Anne, c. 14. 



Mr. J. C. Whyte reproduces the above account in his " History of the British 

 Turf," adding that the South country gentlemen declared to their northern rivals 

 that "they would bet them gold whilst gold they had, and then they would sell their 

 land." Mr. Whyte adds that Merlin was ridden by Jerome Hare, of Cold Kirby, 

 near Hambleton, a jockey whose name I cannot find in Orton's Turf Annals with 

 those of Hesletine, Robinson, Match'em Timms and others, in York and Doncastrr 

 racing before the death of Queen Anne. The news of Her Majesty's decease 

 reached Clifton and Rawcliffe Ings on Monday, August 2nd, just after Mr. Staple- 

 ton's Chance (late Hazard) had won the Gold Cup value 60 for six year olds, 

 II stone, four mile heats. Only on the Friday previously, July 3Oth, Her Majesty's 

 bay horse Star (afterwards called Jacob, who was sire of the dam of Slut by the 

 Derby Loo/ry), had beaten the Lord Chamberlain's chestnut horse Merlin (one of the 



Lord Godolphin'!; " Silver locks." 



By permission nf Mr. Somerville Tattersall. 



