16 The American thoroughbred 



It was not to be wondered at that King Henry's daughter, the "Virgin Queen" 

 (who was a virgin if she did pull up her skirts to the French envoy, Bassompiere, and 

 slap her thigh for his amusement) gave all possible encouragement to racing, for, while 

 she had no horses trained or raced in her own name, she had additional breeding farms 

 at Richmond, St. Albans, Windsor, Greenwich and Waltham ; and the sales of horses 

 produced at those farms proved an important addition to the royal revenues. At her 

 death and the succession of King James 1 to the throne, came the first royal endorse- 

 ment of racing which caused it to be called the "Sport of Kings." It was said that 

 several fine Moorish bred stallions had swam ashore from the wreck of the "In- 

 vincible Armada" and landed on the coast of Scotland, from which had been bred some 

 rapid horses; and there it was that the young monarch, during his nonage, had acquired 

 his love of racing as well as his superb seat, in the saddle. The fact that James "pulied 

 up stakes" at the London palaces and removed his court to Newmarket during the 

 summer months, is the best proof that he was very fond of the big game. (See the 

 "History of Newmarket," written in the most graceful style by the late Mr. J. P. Hore.) 



What impresses me most curiously (although it may not others) is that the young 

 successor to Elizabeth should have taken such an interest in racing ; and that no pre- 

 pared chronicles of performances on the turf should have been handed down from that 

 era to our own. Although but few names have been preserved and those only in an in- 

 cidental fashion, yet a few have survived the wreck of Time, for Mr. Gervase Markham 

 mentions a horse called Grey Valentine who was never beaten, according to his say-so. 

 Hence the bestowal of first honors in that direction to Childers and O'Kelly's Eclipse 

 seems to have been a popular error. In Markham's chronicles, he mentions Pepper- 

 mint, Franklin and Whitefoot as performers of great distinction, while Grey Dellaval, 

 owned by the Earl of Northumberland, comes in for a still wider meed of praise. 

 These are the first English turf horses, therefore, to receive any individual mention. 

 Mr. Markham then goes on to quote from the Treasury records of King James' reign 

 which show that "there were four boys annually apprenticed, on small stipends, to the 

 King's jockeys and the Master of the Horse was held responsible for their good con- 

 duct." No mention, however, is made of any horse owned by the nobles of King 

 James court, although it is well known that the Duke of Buckingham, to whom Eng- 

 land was indebted for the importation of the Helmsley Turk, was the King's favorite 

 and one of the chief moving spirits at Newmarket. Many Eastern horses were im- 

 ported during the reign of James I, but the only one accorded any special mention is 

 the Markham Arabian for which the King paid the big price of 500, according to the 

 Duke of Newcastle, but the royal records of expenditure place the sum at about one- 

 third of that amount. For all the good he ever did the British Stud,. this horse might 

 as well have remained in Syria. At this time there were race-meetings held all over 

 England, especially at Doncaster, Salisbury and Chester, where the Roodee was built 

 for similar purposes by the Romans. 



Charles the First succeeded James and it was during his reign that the first really 

 valuable importation of Oriental blood took place. This was a horse first called the 

 Buckingham Turk, but was sold by his noble owner to a Mr. Helmsley, whence he 

 got the name of "The Helmsley Turk." As to whether he ever raced or not, history 

 is silent, but as the sire of Bustler, Vixen and "Hutton's Royal Colt" (whose dam 

 was a Sedbury Royal mare) he certainly placed himself on record. In Mr. Haggin's 

 catalogues of 1904, containing the dams of 323 yearlings, I find no less than 19 tracing 

 to a mare by Bustler, son of this selfsame Helmsley Turk. The English Stud Book, 

 however, yields no information concerning Bustler other than that he was by Helmsley 

 Turk, yet his blood comes down to the present day through Blunderbuss, Bolton 

 Starling, Old Merlin, Bolton Sweepstakes and the "Blacklegs mare/' which was the 

 dam of Marske, sire of the unbeaten Eclipse, while from Vixen, also by the Helmsley 

 Turk, are derived many of our best horses. Vixen's dam was an imported mare the 



