352 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



as that sono- which records how John Tow (in red) met the redoubtable Matchem 

 Timms (in yellow) one famous August at York in 1700 : 



" Come all ye noble sportmen that love to show fair play, 

 I'll tell you of a valiant match that was run ac York one day 

 Between Mr. Warren's Careless, which I tell o'er and o'er, 

 And the Duke of Devonshire's Atlas that never was beat before." 



I am not sure that " fair play " is an exact description of the " cross and jostle" 

 which was somewhat prevalent in Yorkshire and elsewhere when this spirited ballad 



was first popular ; but it is not often that 

 a more trustworthy word is obtainable 

 of the doings of the period. One 

 jockey's mounts, however, I have been 

 able to trace in a rather more connected 

 manner from the old race-cards, and the 

 name of John Singleton will serve as 

 well as any other to introduce us to the 

 Old School, for he died only five years 

 before the nineteenth century began and 

 he spent no less than fifty in the saddle. 

 Born at Melbourne, near Pockling- 

 ton, in Yorkshire, John Singleton began 

 as a cattleherd on Ross Moor, but was 

 soon attracted towards his master's 

 stables. Mr. Read was a sporting farmer 

 ' on the Wolds. In 1735 his bay mare 



John SingLetvn. Rackcicl, by a son of Bay Uoltun, 



raced at York, and in 1734 at Hambleton ; in 1733 his ch. g. Tantivy was 

 beaten for the Galloways' Plate at York, and in 1732 his grey mare won His 

 Majesty's 100 guineas at Hambleton, thus making a capital beginning with the 

 first entry of his which I can find recorded, and he was no doubt glad enough to get 

 a boy with good hands to win a country wager now and then. This boy was given 

 a ewe one day for a clever bit of work, and with the price of her progeny he paid the 

 fee of Smiling Tom (by the Conyers Arabian] for covering his master's mare. The 

 foal was a good one, and John Singleton rode his own horse past the post in the 

 Subscription Plate at Hambleton, and also at Morpeth, Stockton, and Sunderland. 



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