CHAPTER II 



THE FIRST RACE MEETINGS 



Regular race meetings of brief duration were 

 given in Virginia prior to the defeat of General 

 Braddock in 1753. The first actual racing organ- 

 ization of which there is such testimony that it 

 can be accepted, was formed at Charleston, South 

 Carolina, February 19, 1760. A Mr. Thomas 

 Nightingale, a Yorkshireman by birth, constructed 

 a course and built a club-house. He called it the 

 Newmarket Course, and upon it were inaugurated 

 certain race meetings which became famous affairs 

 and were the forerunners of almost a hundred 

 years of regular racing in the old Southern state. 



In Virginia there was also a Newmarket, and 

 there was a Tree Hill Course, and a Broad Rock 

 Course, and a Fairview. All these were recog- 

 nized places for the assembling of the racing 

 people, and were at times the centres of the social 

 life of Virginia. 



There is existent record of the acting by Gen- 



