28 MR OSBALDESTON'S MATCH. 



There still remains, however, one great sporting event of 

 the year to be noticed. In the Newmarket Houghton 

 Meeting, Mr Osbaldeston undertook to ride two hundred 

 miles in ten hours, over the Round Course, for a bet of a 

 thousand guineas, he (" the Squire") not being limited in 

 the number or choice of horses. 



The task was an Herculean one, nor had any such per- 

 formance been ever a tempted since the days of the cele- 

 brated Miss Pond, who, in the months of April and May, 

 1758, rode one horse one thousand miles, in one thousand 

 successive hours. To be sure " The Squire" had had his 

 competitors. On the 27th of June, 1759, Jennison Shafto, 

 Esq., went, with several horses, fifty miles in one hour, forty- 

 nine minutes, and seventeen seconds ; and on the 4th of May, 

 176 I, Mr John Woodcock rode one hundred miles a day for 

 twenty-nine successive days ; and lastly, on the 30th May, 

 1761, Thomas Dale rode an ass one hundred miles in twenty- 

 two hours and thirty minutes. But none of these, with the 

 exception of Miss Pond's achievement, was to be compared 

 with Mr Osbaldeston's undertaking, which some facetious 

 folk declared to have entitled him to the name of " Rashly 

 Osbaldeston." 



In appearance, Mr Osbaldeston has little of what is usually 

 understood by tLe term sporting: he is rather below the 

 middle size, with a large and muscular frame, the legs some- 

 what disproportioned to the body, and appearing, when on 

 horseback, to belong rather to the animal than the man, so 

 firm and steady is his seat ; his weight was eleven stone. 

 The saddles were covered with lamb-skin, and marked with 

 the names of the horses to be ridden, and the order in 

 which they were to be brought to the post. At twelve 

 minutes past seven, Mr Osbaldeston, dressed in a purple 

 silk jacket, black velvet cap, doe-skin breeches, and top 

 boots, started on his own mare, Emma, and dividing the 



