372 



RACING, STAKEHOLDERS AND STEWARDS. 



To resort to 

 races. 



But though a 

 good custom, 

 not an ease- 

 ment "within 

 the Prescrip- 

 tion Act. 



Training 

 horses on a 

 common. 



A right to race, and a right to resort to races, are on the 

 same footing ; accordingly where a person pleaded to an 

 action of trespass on Newmarket Heath during the races 

 a common right for all persons to go and remain for a 

 reasonable time for the purpose of witnessing the races, 

 the plea was held to be a bad one (c). Nor does a right of 

 highway include a right to race {d), or a right in the pubHc 

 to resort to races (c). 



But though it is a good custom at common law for the 

 citizens of a particular town to enter upon a certain piece 

 of land on a particular day for the purpose of horse- 

 racing, this is not " an easement " within the Prescription 

 Act(e), the words of which are "no claim which may be 

 lawfully made at common law by custom, prescription, or 

 grant, to any way or other easement, or to any water- 

 course, or to the use of any water to be enjoyed upon any 

 land, &c., when such way or other matter shall have been 

 actually enjoyed by any person claiming right thereto 

 without interruption for twenty years, shall be defeated or 

 destroyed by showing only that such way, &c. was first 

 enjoyed at any time prior to such period of twenty years." 

 To make this custom to race a claim of right within the 

 term " easement " in this section, it must be one analogous 

 to that of a right of way, and a right of watercourse which 

 follows it, and must be a right of utility and benefit, and 

 not one of mere recreation and amusement (/). 



The rights of common customarily enjoyed by the tenants 

 of a manor over the waste lands of a manor, or of the 

 inhabitants of an ancient borough, over waste lands to the 

 soil of which they are not entitled, does not include the right 

 of exercising or training horses not belonging to such 

 tenants or inhabitants, but taken in by them from strangers 

 to the manor or borough, nor the right of carrying on the 

 business of a trainer of horses by exercising or training horses 

 on such waste for profit, without the licence of the lord of 

 the manor or the owner of the soil {g) . Qiicere, whether they 

 include the right of such tenant or inhabitant to exercise or 

 train his own horses otherwise than as a person carrying on 

 the business of a trainer. 



(c) Earl of Coventry v. Willes, 9 

 L. T., N. S. 384. 



(d) Sowerbi/ v. Wadsworth, 3 F. 

 & F. 734. 



(e) 2 & 3 'Will. 4, c. 71, s. 2. 



(/) Per Martin, B., Mounsey v. 



Isinay, 34 L. J., Ex. 52. 



(g) Lancashire T. Sunt, 11 Times 

 L. li. 49, affirming the decision of 

 AVright, J., 10 Times L. R. 310, 

 348. 



