NOTES ON MEMORABLE MATCHES. 



Match-making, and the running-off of matches, 

 was in the beginning of racing, and in later times 

 as well, a favourite mode of sport ; a volume, 

 indeed, and an interesting one, might be written on 

 that branch of the history of horse-racing, which 

 is still to some extent carried on, matches being 

 occasionally resorted to as one means of settling 

 which of two is the better horse. It is not my 

 purpose to do more at present than chronicle, by 

 way of " sample," half-a-dozen of the more memo- 

 rable matches, two or three of which may be said 

 to have become historical. 



Matches, as they were made some hundred 

 years ago, or in earlier times, were always ar- 

 ranged to be run over a distance of ground, the 

 courses never as a rule being shorter than four 

 miles, and sometimes extending far beyond 

 that distance. In the years 1718-9-20-1, 

 to go no further back, upwards of eighty such 

 contests took place — that is to say, races between 

 horse and horse. In those days, and for long 

 afterwards, other kinds of matches were made, 

 which do not, however, concern this history ; and 

 at one time it was a fashion to arrange different 

 exploits as matches. Many such might be re 



