250 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



consequence, to decide their races in a single heat, a decision which was not copied 

 by the Master of the Horse for the Queen's Plates until 1861. Dead heats were a 

 natural exception to this. In the same year (1756) their ruling with regard to placed 

 horses was taken as a precedent elsewhere, and quoted thirty years afterwards. In 

 1758 they allowed two pounds over weight, and " disqualified " riders who failed to 

 declare that they were over weight. In 1759 their " Weights and Scales Plate " of 100 

 guineas (raised from the weighing fees they imposed) was thrown open to the public ; 

 in both directions a very important event, especially at a period so soon after the 

 Club's foundation. In 1762 members agreed on certain colours, instead of the 

 haphazard dress hitherto in vogue, a decision which was repeated in 1770. In 1768 

 their Challenge Cup was founded, which in 1862 had twenty-five subscribers. In 

 1769 entries were ordered to be made to the keeper of the Match Book ; and by the 

 next year the Club is evidently feeling strong enough to promulgate quite a number 

 of important resolutions, affecting outsiders as well as themselves. These had to do 

 with a dinner on the King's birthday ; the election of stewards ; watching trials ; 

 fraudulent bets ; certificates of the age of horses entered ; and the punishment of 

 "grooms." In 1770, when Sir Charles Bunbury, Lord Bolingbroke, and Mr. Jenison 

 Shafto were stewards, they officially sanctioned two-year-old racing. The far graver 

 error of yearling races (which were actually not prohibited until 1876) was not made 

 until 1786. In 1771, to complete this catalogue of early legislation, the stewards 

 were given power to settle disputes, with " two referees to be chosen by the parties 

 concerned" ; and " the highest weight" was fixed at 8st. 7lbs., which was as great a 

 change from the old conditions as the abolition of heats, and was no doubt the 

 beginning of that light-weight racing concerning which controversy has not yet 

 been able to discover the last word. 



It will be convenient, and interesting too, to insert here some slight account of 

 the public legislation passed by Parliament (as opposed to the quasi-private edicts 

 of the Jockey Club just mentioned) in so far as it affected racing and gambling, from 

 the point where I last mentioned it ; for after the fatalities which attended the colossal 

 speculations in the early eighteenth century we may well expect that certain 

 traces of the gambling outbreak should have been left upon the laws of 

 England. Charles II. had been careful to pass an Act "to restrain deceitful, 

 disorderly, and excessive gaming," which contains the first official mention of Horse- 

 Racing in the Statute-Book ; and it was subsequently held that this important edict 

 prohibited horse races for more than 10 a side, which only shows that certain 



