296 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



tive of an enthusiastic Royalist family (with a seat 

 at Rye, Sussex, and a baronetcy dating from the 

 Restoration), made a bet that Lord Cavendish 

 (though, if there be no mistake in the date, he 

 must have been simply Marquis of Hartington 

 by courtesy at the time) would not ride from 

 Hyde Park Corner to the Lodge in Windsor 

 Forest, twenty-one miles, on the same horse, in 

 an hour and five minutes. About a fortnight 

 before the appointed day the noble lord ' took a 

 feeler,' that is, rode a trial, and found that it took 

 him a minute over the specified time to do the 

 distance. When, however, the day of the match 

 arrived, he, riding probably a relative, whether 

 whole-bred or half-bred, of the famous Flying 

 Childers, accomplished his task within the allotted 

 time and ' realized the stakes.' Unfortunately 

 the rider's weight is omitted, and we have seen 

 that in the previous year a ' feather weight ' 

 had done twenty miles within the hour at New- 

 market ; but the match is noticeable as a starting- 

 point for measurement of the progress which 

 will be revealed in some accounts of matches 

 further on and nearer to our own date, when 

 American horses, from the time of their first 



