CHAPTER VIII. 



1IIE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE AND HER INFLUENCE ON RACING. 



" Midst cringing serfs and trembling hinds forlorn 

 Dwindles the offspring of the desert born ; 

 But here it thrives unrivalled, far more fleet 

 Our steeds than those which Yemen's barley eat." 



, AFTER so many genealogies, it will perhaps be a relief to turn to a little of the 

 racing, and to look at the racing society, of the first half of the eighteenth century. 

 To those who are unaware of the vitality of the English Turf the most extraordinary 

 thing about this period must be that there is any history of the Turf at all, 

 considering the numberless domestic distractions of the realm, the wars outside it, 

 and the absolute distaste with which George I. regarded every form of English 

 sport. Queen Anne, however, was a true sportswoman, who owned and raced 

 her horses with the greatest zest, and if her interest had not been typical of that 

 displayed by many others in her Court, racing would have been in a bad way. 

 It is indeed true that in the fifty years between 1689 and 1739 the three great 

 Eastern sires were imported ; and no doubt the Byerly Turk, the Darky Arabian, 

 and the Godolphin Arabian had more effect on thoroughbred stock than anything 

 originated by William III., Queen Anne, or George I. But I am not at all sure 

 that the dates of 1748, 1758, and 1764 would have been so famous as they are for 

 the births of Matchem, Herod, and Eclipse, respectively, if those important and 

 indispensable events had not occurred at a time which gave society a better 

 opportunity for appreciating the possibilities and the joys of racing. As we shall 

 see, by 1748 England was ready to take a fresh start, and a notable indication of 

 this is to be found in the fact that two years after the birth of Afalc/um the Jockey- 

 Club was founded. But in the reign of Queen Anne, the reign when clubs of 

 every sort and kind were perpetually being founded by men about town, the 1 urf 



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