276 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



that Englishmen soon discovered the admirable sport of racing. In the reign of 

 Edward II. John Gyfford and William Twety had already written two treatises in 

 rhyme on hunting and horses, which still remain in manuscript in the Cottonian 

 Collection. It was not till almost exactly a hundred years afterwards that the first 

 sporting publication ever issued in England was printed in 1481 for Dame Julyana 

 Berners, the predecessor of a long line of lusty followers who have been, most of 

 them, quite unconscious that a petticoat had led the way. This lady insists that a 

 horse should have fifteen "properties," or points, to wit : 



" Of a man, bolde, prowde, and hardy ; 



Of a woman, fayrbrested, fayr of heere, and easy to leape upon ; 

 Of a foxe, a fayr taylle, short eeres, with a good trotte ; 

 Of a haare, a grete eye, a dry hede, and well runnynge ; 

 Of an asse, a bygge chyn, a flatte legge, and a good hoof." 



This means, at least, that the clumsy creature we see in English drawings of a date 

 before the middle of the sixteenth century was probably not quite so useless for a 

 turn of speed as his unwieldy proportions might suggest. 



Clearly, also, the possession of staying-power had soon become a boasted attribute 

 of our horses. Perhaps there is not much authenticity of detail in the first long- 

 distance ride that seems to have attracted definite attention ; but it was certainly his 

 speed in carrying an important message from Richmond to the Emperor, involving a 

 journey across the Channel, which brought the energy of Thomas Wolsey to the 

 notice of his Sovereign. In 1599 Sir Robert Carey, whose pedestrian feats had 

 already won him a handsome wager, rode from London to Edinburgh about four 

 hundred miles of bad roads in sixty hours, in spite of a heavy fall, and got to 

 Doncaster the first night after doing 162 miles. His hurry was caused by the some- 

 what indelicate ambition to be the first to bring the news of Queen Elizabeth's death 

 to James I., and, of course, he must have changed horses on the way many times. 

 In the reign of the new King his son, the promising and unfortunate Henry, Prince 

 of Wales, rode from Richmond to Sir Oliver Cromwell's property near Huntingdon 

 (which I have already had to mention) " before noon" on the same day, a distance 

 of some sixty miles ; and he did forty miles more the next day. In 1604 a perform- 

 ance by one of the King's grooms, called John Lepton, is recorded in Fuller's 

 " Worthies." Within five days he rode the full distance between London and York 

 five times, and, finishing his task in the Northern town on a Friday, he rode back 

 on the following Monday and appeared next day at the Court in Greenwich "in as 



