INTRODUCTION 



BY 



JOHN MAUNSELL RICHARDSON 



I WONDER how many of our readers are aware that the first 

 person to give a fillip to amateur jockeyship was that merriest 

 of monarchs, King Charles the Second, who, not content with 

 merely looking on, frequently rode himself in races of his 

 own promotion ? He it was who founded a race meeting at 

 Burford in Oxfordshire, in reality the origin of the Bibury 

 Club, which, afterwards transferred to Stockbridge, became the 

 favourite battle-ground of all the best gentlemen riders in the 

 kingdom, and though still in existence, is, alas ! but a shadow 

 of its former self; thanks to the disappearance of the old-time 

 meeting at Stockbridge, for which Salisbury is but a sorry 

 substitute. Another favourite meeting, too, long since done 

 away with, was that of the Liverpool Hunt Club at Hoy lake 

 in Cheshire, at which all our best amateurs over a country 

 invariably sported silk. 



Then, again, there was Lord Wilton's own meeting at 

 Hooton Park, where he himself, one of the finest horsemen of 

 his or any other time, riding as ** Mr. Clarke," was always very 

 much en evidence. 



The Hoo and Gorhambury Races, too, in Bedfordshire and 

 Hertfordshire respectively, the latter being held in Lord 

 Verulam's Park, at which Mr. Delme Radcliffe, a splendid 



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