A HISTORY OF THE EXGLISH TURF. 



A few more of these older jockeys deserve mention before we pass out of sight of 

 the times in which they lived. Among them Michael Mason will be chiefly remem- 

 bered as the rider of Morwick Ball, and as a successful trainer on the Wold until his 

 death in 1786. Another pair always spoken of together were Charles Dawson of 

 Richmond and Mr. Mutton's Silvio, who won the Richmond Gold Cup in 1764 after 

 being beaten four times previously for the same event by Dainty Davy. Dawson 

 subsequently trained for Sir Lawrence Dundas of Aske, with W. Arnold and T. Fields 

 as his riders, both of whom succeeded to his stables. Yet a third indissoluble connection 

 in the memory of every racing man is that between Eclipse and John Oakley, who died 

 in ' 793- The hard work some of these men had to do may be judged from such 



exploits as that of Joseph 

 Rose of Stokesley, wht> 

 once rode Mr. Stapleton's 

 Beauf remold (by Tartar} 

 on Monday, Sept. 3, 

 1764. for the King's Plate 

 at Lincoln, and on the 

 Wednesday for the Ladies' 

 Plate ; rode Dainty Davy 

 at Richmond in Yorkshire 

 on Thursday ; and Butc/ic- 

 lor a,t Manchester on the 

 Friday ; all this before 

 railways, or even macada- 

 mised roads, were dreamt 



of. The jockey who won most Gold Cups in the eighteenth century seems to have 

 been John Kirton, whose St. Leger on Mr. Coate's Omf>hale (by HioJiflyer'], after 

 she had been amiss for some time, and was very short of training, was his most 

 notable classic triumph, for he beat the fa.vourite and won easily. He came into 

 a fortune and lived till he was ninety-three, but was blind and crippled ere he died. 



The name of Alabacnlia has been mentioned in connection with old John 

 Singleton's nephew. When the race in which this was the first victory was 

 definitely called the St. Leger, its first winning jockey was George Herring, who 

 rode Hollandinsc for Sir Thomas Gascoigne and Mr. Stapleton, and whose career 

 was as brilliant as it was short, after he had learnt his riding on Bramham Moor with 



Sir Charles B 'anbury's "Thunderbolt" (1806) by "Sorcerer." 



