RACING AT THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



335 



was the property of the Prince of Wales, as was Baronet, who beat Mr. Barton's 

 Express and seventeen others for the Oaklands Stakes at Ascot, on June 28, 1791, 

 winning 2,950 guineas, besides a number of very large bets, in a crowd of some forty 

 thousand persons, after which the race was transferred to Newmarket. 



In the last decade before the eighteenth century ende'd I have chosen as typical 

 examples, Baronet, Haphazard, Hambletonian and Diamond, Ambrosia, Penelope, 

 and Eleanor, not perhaps as the best or the most famous of their time, but 

 as those who best exhibit in their shape or peculiarities some of the effects of the 



" Baronet.'' 



breeding of that day. In another chapter I shall deal with early years of the 

 St. Leger, the Derby, and the Oaks, but there was many a good race on the English 

 Turf before a single fixture had become "classic," and by this time many an owner 

 too, who, far from having royal blood in his veins, had not even a handle to his 

 name. Wildman and O'Kelly are two instances that will at once occur to the readers 

 of these last pages, and there are others too. The earliest examples of " warning 

 off" are provided by Messrs. Quick and Castle. Dick England was another 

 notorious ruffian of the period, while at Jack Munday's Coffee House in the Strand 

 you could find many more like Jack Tetherington, Bob Weir, or Tom Hull. The 



