454 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Barclay, once more faced Belcher at Epsom Downs in February, 1809, and won by 

 sheer condition, and the same hard training which enabled him to stand up so long 

 against Molineaux two years afterwards, that the black's wind finally went and Cribb 

 broke his jaw with a terrific cross- counter from the right. Not in England only did 

 the English P. R. exercise its ascendency at this time. In Paris Lord Henry Seymour, 

 yqunger son of the third Marquis of Hertford, was backing Owen Swift, and was 

 encouraged in his patronage by the Rothschilds, the Due de Chartres, Captain 



Gronow, Lord Petersham, the 

 Marquis of Waterford, and many 

 more. In England itself, statesmen 

 did not disdain to watch the furious 

 fray when among the spectators were 

 such men as the Rt. Hon. William 

 Windham, Lord Althorp, Sir Robert 

 Peel, and Lord Palrnerston ; and 

 when, among its chroniclers, Litera- 

 ture could number William Hazlitt, 

 "Christopher North," George Borrow, 

 William Makepeace Thackeray, Lord 

 Houghton, Charles Kingsley, and Tom 

 Hughes ; nor could Racing circles 

 stand aloof when Assheton Smith, 

 George Osbaldeston, Sir Tatton 

 Sykes, and George Payne were 

 keenly interested. Brutal it may have 

 been, in many ways. But I doubt 

 whether modern " boxing competitions " are an improvement on it, and in any estimate 

 of the Turf as Lord George Bentinck found it the influence of the P.R. cannot be 

 omitted. It was with the halo of his former triumphs in the P.R. that John Gully first 

 took up racing, and he could never go to Newmarket without the crowd remembering 

 his fight with Gregson for the belt in 1807 at Six Mile Bottom, and his repeated victory 

 next year in Sir John Sebright's park, in Hertfordshire. He had not fought as often 

 as many men ; but he had done enough, and by 1830, when he was a betting partner 

 with Ridsdale, his fame at " the corner " was at its zenith ; his carriage was dignified 

 and manly, his countenance calm, but defiant, and he looked what he was, one of the 



John Jackson. 



