530 THE HORSE. 



in their kind are strong and fleet, a shout is raised, and common 

 horses are ordered to withdraw from without the way. Two 

 jockeys, then, or sometimes three, as the match may be made, 

 prepare themselves for the contest, such as are used to ride, and 

 know how to manage their horses with judgment; the grand point 

 being to prevent a competitor fro:ti getting before them. The 

 horses on their part are not without emulation. They tremble, 

 and are impatient, and continually in motion. At last, the signal 

 once given, they hurry along with unremitting velocity; the 

 jockeys, inspired with the thoughts of applause and the hopes of 

 victory, clapping spurs to their willing steeds, brandishing their 

 whips, and cheering them with their cries." Youatt adds, that 

 this description, with the exception of the cries, might form part 

 of the record of a modern race at Epsom, in the columns of a morn- 

 ing paper, so national is the English sport of horse-racing, and 

 so unchanged are its characteristics. The history of the English 

 horse and turf is full of interest. Such was the importance that 

 Edward III. attached to good stock, that he gave a thousand 

 marks for fifty Spanish horses, negotiating at the same time with 

 the kings of France and Spain for their safe passage by land. The 

 Stuarts imported many fine horses from the East, and laid the 

 basis of the modern thorough-bred stock. Since their time it has 

 been considered obligatory upon royalty to encourage breeding 

 and racing, and even Parliament adjourns in honor of the Derby. 

 As a recent writer in an P]nglish magazine says : " I 4 t is an 

 undoubted necessity that Englishmen should have a national 

 pastime, capable of affording amusement to all classes, enacted in 

 the open air, devoid of all taint of cruelty, and conducted, as far 

 as possible, with the rules of fair play. That want racing supplies ; 

 and when the national amusements of other times and peoples are 

 reviewed, it will be found a difficult task to dispute, successfully, 

 the claim that the English turf is the noblest pastime in which 

 any nation, ancient or modern, has ever indulged." 



The love of the national sport was strongly implanted in the 

 breasts of those Englishmen who settled Virginia and other 

 southern and southwestern portions of the Unite^ States. They 

 imported the best English horses, and the time early came when 

 every planter kept his stud. As the country was sparsely settled, 

 and wagon-roads uncut, the horse and saddle furnished the prin- 

 cipal means of communication with neighbors and towns, and to 

 be well mounted became one of the distinguishing marks of social 

 position. The stage-coach came afterward, and the railroad ; and 

 travelling on horseback gradually ceased, but not until the taste 

 for using the horse under the saddle had become thoroughly 

 established, and yearly meetings for racing in the English style 

 had become popular. 



