SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



galloways • Give and Take,' ^ the other a ^^50 

 purse, each decided in two heats. In 1730 a 

 selling race with a prize of ^^40 was added ; but 

 this disappeared the next year, when we find a 

 bid for support in the offer of two prizes of 

 20 and 50 gns. respectively, entrance for which 

 was free. The Duke of Ancaster was a strong 

 supporter of the Leighton meetings at this time, 

 as also was Lord Portmore ; but the competition 

 for the stakes, usually 20 gns, and 50 gns., was 

 never very great, the largest field ever seen at 

 the meeting being that for the less valuable race 

 in 1 73 1, when six horses started. Leighton 

 Buzzard races were held for the last time, 

 so far as Cheney's record shows, in the year 

 1734- 



Other meetings held during the earlier part of 

 the 1 8th century had even less vitality than that 

 of Leighton. In 1729 races were held at 

 ' Woobourn,' otherwise Woburn : the meeting 

 deserves mention for the fact that the first event, 

 a 20-gn. stake, was a selling race, one of the 

 earliest on record : the winner was to be sold if 

 demanded for 40 gns., a sum which does not 

 indicate engagement of a high class of horse. 

 In accordance with a practice not uncommon at 

 this time, the conditions of the other race, a 

 30-gn. plate, provided that if only one horse 

 started his owner must pay 10 gns. out of the 

 prize-money towards the next year's plate. This 

 meeting did not prove successful, and no more 

 races were held at Woburn till 1739, when a 

 match for 10 gns. a side was run. 



Potton endeavoured to establish a meeting in 

 1 73 1, biit it proved a failure. Three prizes 

 were offered : two plates of ;^50 and ;^20 

 value, for which Sir Arthur Hazelrigg's Poor 

 Robin and Sweet Maidenhead respectively walked 

 over, and a ^^lo prize given by Sir Roger 

 Burgam for galloways 'Give and Take,' for 

 which three horses started. The meeting was 

 not repeated. 



Coming to more recent times we find that in 

 July 1854 a meeting was held at Dunstable, 

 when three races were contested : the sport was 

 not of much account, even regarded from a strictly 

 local standpoint, and the first Dunstable meeting 

 was the last. 



In 1868 and 1869 hunt races took place at 

 Biggleswade, the programme including flat and 

 hurdle races : they do not demand notice. 



Harston Club and Harston Junior Club 

 organized races in June 1872, the former hold- 

 ing their meeting on the Bedford course, the 

 latter on the following day at Royston : this 

 was practically private sport, most of the races 



' Give-and-Take conditions were designed to bring 

 together horses of from 12 hands to 1 5 hands by 

 allotting weight for inches. A 1 2-hand animal carried 

 5 St., and 14 oz. were added for every eighth of an 

 inch over that height. In ' Whim ' plates the age of 

 the horse was considered as well as its height. 



being open only to members of the clubs as 

 owners and riders. Harston Club held a meet- 

 ing at Bedford again in 1873, offering induce- 

 ments to undergraduates of the Universities as 

 well as to its own members : flat races and 

 steeplechases formed the programme. No mention 

 of races under the auspices of the club appears in 

 the records of subsequent years. 



The Bedford meeting boasted respectable 

 antiquity. The first mention in Cheney * occurs 

 in 1730, when two races worth respectively £p.o 

 and ;^50 were contested. In 1731 the execu- 

 tive was able to secure very fair entries for the 

 three races advertised, but evidence of desire to 

 encourage local talent appears in the conditions : 

 thus the 30-gn. purse was open only to horses 

 which had never won a prize of 30 gns. value ; 

 the 20-gn. stakes to horses which had never 

 won 20 gns., and the 50-gn. purse to horses 

 which had never won 50 gns. The class of 

 animal attracted on these terms may be guessed 

 from the circumstance that of the ten horses 

 which started for the 30-gn. purse no fewer than 

 six were distanced ' in the first heat. 



The programme of 1732 was framed on very 

 similar lines, but that of 1733 was varied by 

 the conversion of the 50-gn. purse into a race 

 for hunters ridden by gentlemen ; the hunters' 

 race did not receive much support. Sir Hum- 

 phrey Monoux won it with his dun gelding Fox- 

 hunter, who beat two others. Foxhunter won 

 the same race again the following year. In 

 1735 the meeting came perilously near collapse : 

 the usual three prizes were offered ; that for 

 30 gns. brought only two starters to the post, 

 and the other two races were not run for want 

 of horses. For a few years the races languished, 

 receiving poor support. In 1739 the card con- 

 sisted of two events, one a lo-gn. stake 'Give 

 and Take,' which brought out two legitimate 

 runners and ' a hack to qualify,' i.e. make a race ; 

 and a 20-gn. stake, which produced a field of 

 three. Under such conditions it is not surpris- 

 ing that this meeting was one of the many 

 brought to an end by the Act of George II, for- 

 bidding any race to be run, with exceptions in 

 favour of Newmarket and Black Hambleton, for 

 a stake of less value than ;^50. There was no 

 meeting at Bedford in 1 740, nor was it revived 

 until 1753, when three races each worth ^'^o to 

 the winner were run on Cow Meadow on three 

 days in August of that year. Influence was 

 brought to bear in the en3eavour to make the 

 meeting a success, the Dukes of Hamilton and 

 Ancaster and the Earl of March running horses ; 



' Hist. Lin of All Horse Matches. 



' Two hundred and forty yards from the winning 

 post on the racecourse is placed a post called the 

 ' distance post.' In the old days of heat racing any 

 horse which had not reached the post when the 

 winner passed the judge's chair was declared ' dis- 

 tanced ' and could not run in subsequent heats. 



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