SOME MEMORABLE MATCHES 315 



siderable sums of" money were laid on the event, 

 it being the greatest performance ever done in 

 England by one horse before that time.' 



A.D. 1788 : On May 21 a match for 100 guineas 

 a side in the sportive (which sometimes, for want of 

 thought, degenerates into the cruel) vein was run 

 on Knavesmire, York, between Mr. Maynard (of 

 the family of the extinct Lords Maynard) and the 

 famous Mr. Baker (of Elemore Hall), who ran 

 respectively a bay mare and a gray horse, carry- 

 ing THIRTY STONE each, one mile, when the bay 

 mare proved 'the better horse,' though the gray 

 horse was the favourite at 2 to i on him. 



A.D. 1791 : At the Curragh October Meeting, 

 ' Mr. Wilde, a sporting gentleman, made bets 

 to the amount of 2,000 guineas to ride against 

 time, viz., 127 English miles in 9 hours. On 

 October 6 he started in a valley near the Curragh 

 course, where two miles were measured in a circular 

 direction ' (as Mr. Hannibal Chollop used to spit, 

 but within a smaller compass) ; ' each time he en- 

 compassed the course it was regularly marked. 

 . . . He had 2 hours and 35 (? 39) minutes 

 to spare. Mr. Wilde had no more than ten 

 horses, but they were all blood and from the 



