SOME MEMORABLE MATCHES 321 



Solomon (then Tankersley) was not placed. It 

 is said that • the first 2 miles was {sic) run in 

 3 minutes, and the whole 4 miles in 7 minutes 

 and between 10 and 1 1 seconds.' Here again 

 is a piece of very questionable ' clocking ' ; for 

 even the late Sir F. H. Doyle, the horse-loving 

 professor of poetry at Oxford, who was a great 

 'laudator temporis acti,' so far as horse- racing is 

 concerned, and especially in any case of a 

 Yorkshire horse, is fain to doubt the ' first 

 2 miles ... in 3 minutes ' (which another authority 

 transforms into 4 minutes igi seconds, with 

 wonderful attention to fractions) and also the 

 distance, which was certainly a good deal short 

 of 4 miles, though known as the ' 4-mile course.' 



A.D. 1802 : In the month of April a Mr. Shaw 

 (weight unknown) is recorded as having ridden 

 from Burton on the Humber to the Vine Inn, 

 Bishopsgate Street, London, a distance of 172 

 miles, in i hour and 27 minutes less than the 

 10 hours allowed him ; riding fourteen horses 

 altogether, and doing 84 miles in 4 hours, and 

 112 in 6, leaving 60 to be done in 4 hours, and, 

 according to the record, doing them in 2 hours 

 and 33 minutes, which seems to be an assertion 



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