55 
Theaccompanying portrait of Grey Diomed, 
a son of Diomed, the winner of the first 
Derby, in 1780, gives a good idea of the 
racehorse of this period. Grey Diomed was 
foaled in 1785, and won many important 
races between the years 1788 and 1792. 
He was bred at Great Barton, Bury St. 
Edmunds, by Sir Charles Bunbury. 
It was in 1780 that Mr. William Childe, 
of Kinlet, “Flying Childe,” introduced the 
modern method of riding fast to hounds. 
Prior to Mr. Childe’s time, men rode to 
hounds in a fashion we should consider slow 
and over-cautious, timber being taken at a 
stand; but once the superior excitement of 
fast riding across country was realised, the 
old, slow method soon disappeared. 
Though the Norfolk Hackney achieved 
its fame through Blaze (foaled 1733), who 
begat the original Shales, foaled in 1755, 
and the foundations of this invaluable breed 
were thus laid in George II.’s time, we 
must have regard to the period during which 
the breed achieved its celebrity both at home 
and abroad, and that period is the long reign 
of George III. 
The old system of conveying mails on 
horseback, with its innumerable faults and 
drawbacks, came to an end in George III.’s 
