Book I.] ORIGIN OF THE TURF. 21 



cultivated in the British Islands for racing and other 

 purposes. It must here suffice to mention that all the 

 horses which have been successful on the Turf, have 

 been, from the earliest times, of Eastern descent. 

 Thus, in the earliest mention of horse-races in England, 

 in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander 

 (a.d. 210), at Netherby in Yorkshire, the horses were 

 delicate Arabs of famous speed and stamina, but so 

 unsuitable to this climate that their owners were 

 obliged to construct an enclosed training ground in 

 order to prepare them for their engagements.* The 

 other stations in England identified with the Turf 

 during the Roman occupation were Rushborough, 

 Carleon, Silchester, and Dorchester. The superiority 

 of the English thoroughbred horse is attributable, if 

 not directly traceable, to the Eastern blood introduced 

 and maintained by the Romans at the period above 

 mentioned. Subsequently the best English mares 

 were covered by Arabian stallions which continued to 

 be imported during the early and middle ages, and in 

 a more marked degree and more closely allied with 

 the Turf, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth 

 centuries. 



Horse-racing is incidentally mentioned in the 

 Anglo-Saxon era. When the Saxon youth attained 

 the age of fifteen he had the right of choosing his path 

 in life. At this period we find them striving to excel 

 each other in horse-racing. A person in Bede describes 

 himself as one of a party who on their journey came 

 to a spacious plain adapted to a race-course. The 



' Basilicam equestran exercitatoriam. Vide Brace's " Roman Wall." 



