FIRST PERIOD: CHARLES II. TO GEORGE II. ii 



Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, where, it is reason- 

 ably believed, there had always been some kind 

 of horse-racing from the very earliest moment at 

 which there were two horses and two Yorkshire- 

 men in the county of Ridings, the turf had evi- 

 dently been growing apace. There had been 

 horse-racing on the frozen Ouse as early as 1607 ; 

 in Charles II. 's reign, in 1674, a Yorkshireman 

 had actually carried off ' the Plate ' at Newmarket 

 under the King's very nose ; and in William III.'s, 

 in 1698, when Peter the Great is said to have 

 visited Newmarket, a Yorkshire mare, belonging 

 to a Mr. Bowcher (? Bourchier), was matched 

 (though the match fell through) against the King's 

 own horse Turk ; and there is reason to think 

 that the Royal Gold Cup, or Royal Plate, at 

 Black Hambleton had been already established. 

 Else there seems to be no point in the informa- 

 tion vouchsafed to the effect that the Plate was 

 originally for horses as well as mares, and was 

 first won by Sir W. Strickland's Syphax, but had 

 its conditions altered ' in the reio^n of Oueen 

 Anne,' and was then confined to ' mares only.' 



It may have been in this reign, if, as appears 

 from the first volume (new edition, p. 4) of the 



