r T> 



THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 349 



and influential body of men, whose chief ostensible desires were the improvement of 

 the thoroughbred and the encouragement of racing, could not but exercise a gradual 

 but lasting effect upon both these important factors in the successful progress of the 

 English Turf, at a time when England was ripe for some such crystallisation of the 

 spasmodic efforts towards .sport that were so numerous in every part of the country. 

 By degrees, as was but natural, their actions became precedents, their advice grew 

 into law. When it became necessary later on to have some really legal foundation 

 for the authority which had without question become theirs, it was no difficult 



" Prospero" by "Merlin." 

 (A light chestnut horse ; the jockey wears 

 green jacket and black cap ; the groom 

 in yellow.) 



task to provide it. But the position of the Jockey Club owes its true strength far 

 more to the traditions which have grown round it ever since 1753, than to any 

 material or even legal sources. The rapidity with which the Club acquired a position 

 which secured a sufficiently general respect for its own rulings, may be seen from 

 those resolutions of its first twenty years, which were either definitely promulgated 

 over signatures of members, or generally quoted as guiding precedents. The first 

 occurs when the Club recognised that the scarcity of horses which had suggested 

 three or four heats in a single race had now disappeared, and very properly agreed, in 



VOL. II. L L 



