A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



selves, and of their other varied pursuits and interests, have been to some extent 

 neglected in former accounts of the English Turf which have gone far more deeply 

 into its many technical details. We live ourselves in a whirl of complicated occur- 

 rences, without often recognising the broad tendencies of the main stream on which 

 we float. To us a few details of contemporary interest shine with vivid clearness as 

 the turning points of our individual career, in Racing or in any other form of active 

 life. But it is quite probable that these details have no commanding influence upon 

 the general trend of that particular occupation considered as a whole ; and in the 

 same way I am endeavouring now rather to depict the movement of the older periods, 

 as we can value them by the light of a century's added knowledge, than to record 



every fact in a vast mass 

 of ancient chronicles 

 which are in many 

 cases as dead as the 

 men who gave them 

 birth. 



But it would be 

 obviously as improper 

 to leave the eighteenth 

 century with the sug- 

 gestion that Matchem, 

 Herod, Eclipse, and 

 their nearest relations 

 were the only horses 

 worth mentioning, as 



it would be to assert that horses were the only things which their owners 

 cared about. Those who have done me the honour of following my illus- 

 trations with a seeing eye, will have noticed long ago that an improvement 

 in the build of the horses has by this time made its appearance, which is not merely 

 the result of a great increase in the artistic skill with which they are represented. 

 It will be worth while, for instance, to compare such animals of a slightly older date, 

 as Shapeless, Chatsworth, Martin (by Cade], Little Driver, Cato, Sportlcy (a trio foaled 

 in 1 748), or Aaron, not perhaps with such an example as Looby (who seems a survival 

 of an older epoch), or with Mr. Thomas Foley's Firctailby Squirrel (1770), or even 

 with Mr. Ayrton's Bay Malton (by Sampson], but with such evidently more highly 

 developed animals as Gimcrack, Goldfmder, or Pumpkin. 



By permission of Sir Walter Gilbey. 



"Looby" at full stretch. 



