sharing, perhaps, the view held by many persons at this period that the
general use of stage coaches and carriages was likely to lead to loss
of proficiency in the saddle. He established a riding school, placing
in charge Major Foubert, a French officer, whom he invited to England
for the purpose. At the same time he recognised that travelling on
wheels would increase in popularity, and took such measures as he might
to prevent the breed of horses from degenerating. His Act of 1694 (5
and 6 Wm. and M., c. 22), granting licenses to 700 hackney coaches,
four-wheel carriages, now called cabs, in London and Westminster,
contains a clause forbidding the use of any horse, gelding or mare
under 14 hands in hackney or stage coach.
The increasing numbers of people who travelled by stage coach had
brought the highwayman into flourishing existence, and 4 of Wm. and M.
c. 8, to encourage the apprehension of these gentry, gave the taker
of a highwayman the horse, arms, and other property of the thief. In
the tenth year of his reign another Act was passed (10 Wm. III., c.
12) which made horse stealers liable to the penalty of branding on the
cheek; this enactment, however, was repealed in 1706 by Queen Anne
(6 Anne, 9), who substituted burning in the hand for a penalty which
declared the sufferer's character to all who saw him.
William, by legislation, endeavoured to procure improvements in the
public highways, whose condition in many parts had become dangerous "by
reason of the great and many loads which are weekly drawn through the
same." The records of subsequent years, however, showed that the state
of the roads continued to leave much to be desired.
QUEEN ANNE (1702-1714).
The arrival in England of the Darley Arabian in 1706 was a fit opening
of the era of prosperity on the Turf which dawned in Anne's time.
The Queen, from the beginning of her reign, evinced her desire to
promote racing, and added several royal plates to those already in
existence--at the instance, says Berenger,[16] of her consort, Prince
George of Denmark, who is said to have been exceedingly fond of the
Turf. A writer in the _Sporting Magazine_ of 1810 gives the following
account of the circumstances under which the royal plates were given:--
"... Gentlemen went on breeding their horses so fine for the sake
of shape and speed only. Those animals which were only second,
third or fourth rates in speed were considered to be quite useless.
This custom continued until the reign of Queen Anne, when a public
spirited gentleman (observing inconvenience arising from this
exclusiveness) left thirteen plates or purses to be run for at
such places as the Crown should appoint. Hence they are called
the King's or Queen's Plates or Guineas. They were given upon the
condition that each horse, mare or gelding should carry twelve
stone weight, the best of three heats over a four-mile course. By
this method a stronger and more useful breed was soon raised; and
if the horse did not win the guineas, he was yet strong enough
to make a good hunter. By these crossings--as the jockeys term
it--we have horses of full blood, three-quarters blood, or half
bred, suitable to carry burthens; by which means the English breed
of horses is allowed to be the best and is greatly esteemed by
foreigners."
Whether the money for the royal plates was provided, as Berenger
states, from the Queen's own purse, at the instance of her consort,
or whether it came from the estate of the public spirited gentleman
referred to by the contributor to the _Sporting Magazine_, the fact
remains that these plates were established in Anne's reign, and that
they did something to encourage the production of a better stamp of
horse. An animal able to carry twelve stone three four-mile heats must
be one of substance, and not merely a racing machine.
Much attention would seem to have been given to the mounting of our
cavalry and the general efficiency of that arm by Anne's generals. Col.
Geo. Denison, in his _History of Cavalry_ (London, 1877), says that
the battle of Blenheim in 1704 was almost altogether decided by the
judicious use of cavalry, while at Ramillies in 1706, and Malplaquet,
the cavalry played a very important part in the operations.
In the later years of her reign the Queen's interest in racing became
still more apparent; she gave her first Royal gold cup, value 60
guineas, in 1710; and yet more plates: further, she ran horses in her
own name at York and elsewhere.
There was little change on the "Road" during Anne's time; springs of
steel had replaced the leather straps used in England until about
1700, but the coaches, improved in minor details, were still ponderous
and required powerful teams to draw them. The Queen's own state coach
was drawn by six mares of the Great Horse, or as it should be called
in connection with the period under survey, the Shire Horse breed.
Oxen were used in the slow stage waggons, as appears from the laws
passed by William III. and Anne. The law of the latter sovereign (6
Anne, cap. 56) enacted that not more than six horses or oxen might be
harnessed to any vehicle plying on the public roads except to drag
them up hills; and this latter indulgence was withdrawn three years
later (1710), leaving the team of six to negotiate hills as they might.
Hackney coachmen evidently displayed a tendency to evade their legal
obligations in the matter of size in their horses; for in 1710 another
Act (9 Anne, c. 16) was passed to the same effect as a former law,
requiring hackney-coach horses to be not less than 14 hands in height.
[Illustration: THE DARLEY-ARABIAN (Foaled 1702).]
GEORGE I. (1714-1727).
During the first seventy years of the eighteenth century Eastern horses
were imported in large numbers; there is in existence a list of 200
stallions which were sent to this country, but that number does not
represent a tithe of the whole. The event of George I.'s reign, from
a Turf point of view, was, of course, the arrival, in 1724, of the
Godolphin Arabian, the sire to which our racers of to-day owe so much.
George I. appears to have taken little personal interest in the Turf,
though at least one visit paid by him to Newmarket, in October 1717,
is recorded; nor does the parliamentary history of his brief reign show
that much attention was given to the work of improving our horses.
The science of travel had gone back rather than forward, for in 1715
the post from London to Edinburgh took six days, whereas in 1635 it
took three. At this time, and until 1784, the mails were carried
by boys on horseback; and between the badness of the roads, the
untrustworthiness of the boys, and the wretched quality of the horses
supplied them, the postal service was both slow and uncertain. The Post
Office still held the monopoly (first granted in 1603) of furnishing
post-horses at a rate of threepence a mile, and its control over its
subordinates was of the slightest.
The only Act of George I.'s reign relating to horses was that of 1714
(1 George I., c. 11), which forbade waggoners, carriers, and others,
from drawing any vehicle "with more than four horses in length."
The omission of reference to oxen in this connection may indicate that
for draught purposes on the highways they were going out of use.
GEORGE II. (1727-1760).
An important step was taken in regard to the Turf by George II. in
1740; some of its provisions will be found in _Ponies Past and Present_
(pp. 8 and 9), but it contained other clauses of a far-reaching
character. This law (13 Geo. II., c. 19) provided that every horse
entered for a race must be _bonâ fide_ the property of the person
entering it, and that one person might enter only one horse for a race
on pain of forfeiture. The weights to be carried were prescribed:
A 5-year-old was to carry 10 stone.
A 6-year-old " " 11 stone.
A 7-year-old " " 12 stone.
Any horse carrying less was to be forfeited and his owner fined £200.
Every race was to be finished on the day it began, that is to say, all
heats were to be run off in one day. The Act went even further. It
declared that matches might be run for a stake of under £50, only at
Newmarket and Black Hambleton in Yorkshire, under a penalty of £200 for
disobedience. Prizes elsewhere were to be of an intrinsic value of at
least £50, and entrance money was to go to the second horse.
So drastic a measure as this could not long be upheld in a free
and sport-loving country; and it is without surprise we find the
Government, five years later, withdrawing from a position which must
have made it excessively unpopular. The next law (18 Geo. II., c. 34,
sec. xi.) opens with the announcement that, whereas the thirteen Royal
Plates of 100 guineas value each, annually run for, as also the high
prices that are continually given for horses of strength and size are
sufficient to encourage breeders to raise their cattle (_sic_) to the
utmost size and strength possible, "Therefore it shall be lawful to
run any match for a stake of not less than £50 value at any weights
whatsoever and at any place or places whatsoever."
The effect of this "climbing down" measure was naturally to introduce
lighter weights. Thus in 1754, to take an example that presents itself,
Mr. Fenwick's Match'em won the Ladies' Plate of 126 guineas at York
carrying nine stone, as a five-year-old; six-year-olds carrying 10
stone, four-mile heats; and in 1755 Match'em beat Trajan at Newmarket
carrying 8 stone 7 lbs. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the Act
of 1745 was the first step towards modern light-weight racing. It must
be added that the scale of weights prescribed for the Royal Plates was
as follows:--
4-year-olds carried 10 stone 4 lb.
5-year-olds " 11 " 6 "
6-and aged " 12 "
Races decided in 4-mile heats.
The King himself lent a somewhat perfunctory support to the Turf,
keeping at Hampton Court a grey Arab stallion, whose services were
available for mares at a stated fee.
A most important event in the history of the Turf marks George II.'s
reign. The Jockey Club was founded, and its existence first received
public recognition in Mr. John Pond's _Sporting Kalendar_, published at
the end of 1751 or the beginning of 1752. It is probable, however, that
the club was actually in existence in the year 1750; but it was started
without any attempt at publicity, and, so far as can be ascertained,
with no idea whatever of acquiring the despotic power which eventually
came into its hands. As Mr. Robert Black, in _The Jockey Club and its
Founders_, remarks:
"What more natural than that the noblemen and gentlemen who
frequented Newmarket, where ruffians and blacklegs were wont to
congregate, should conceive the notion of forming themselves into
a body apart, so that they might have at Newmarket as well as
in London and elsewhere a place of their own, to which not every
blackguard who could pay a certain sum of money would have as much
right as they to claim entrance."
The conjecture is a most plausible one; but it was not long before the
Club showed that it intended to support racing in practical fashion,
for at the Newmarket meeting in May, 1753, two Jockey Club Plates were
given for horses belonging to members of the Club.
It is stated that, in the year 1752, sixty thoroughbred stallions, of
which only eight were reputed imported Arabs, were standing for service
in various parts of England; fees, as may be supposed, were low. A
horse named Oronooka headed the list at a fee of 20 guineas; another,
Bolton Starling, covered at 8½ guineas; but the usual charge was one,
two or three guineas. Flying Childers in the earlier part of the
century stood at 50 guineas, then at 100 guineas, and one season at 200
guineas.
There is little to note concerning the "Road" or other spheres of
equine work during this reign. The roads were as bad as ever, and
travel was so slow that in 1740 Metcalf, the blind road-maker, walked
the 200 miles from London to Harrogate more quickly than Colonel
Liddell could cover the distance in his coach with post-horses.
The barbarous methods of training cavalry recruits at this period
was attracting notice, as we learn from a little work on _Military
Equitation_, by Henry Earl of Pembroke, which was published in 1761.
The writer refers to the "wretched system of horsemanship at present
prevailing in the army," and refers to the common method of putting a
man on a rough trotting horse, to which he is obliged to stick with all
his might of arms and legs." Most of the officers, he says, when on
horseback are a disgrace to themselves and the animals they ride; and
he proceeds to urge the adoption of methods based on practical common
sense.
[Illustration: JACOB BATES, THE TRICK RIDER.
(About 1750.)]
GEORGE III. (1760-1820.)
The laws concerning horses made by the Parliaments of George III. have
bearing on the subject of breeding and improvement, inasmuch as they
deal with the horse as taxable property. The turf, road, and hunting
history of the reign is important, the first particularly so, though
the King himself took little personal interest in racing. "Give and
Take" plates for horses from 12 to 15 hands were in fashion during the
latter part of the last century, George II.'s Act directed against
small racehorses notwithstanding. A 12-hand pony carried 5 stone, and
the scale of weight for inches prescribed 14 oz. for each additional
quarter of an inch; whereby 13 hands carried 7 stone, 14 hands 9 stone,
15 hands 11 stone. Hunter races were run at Ascot in 1722, and after
that date the _Calendar_ of 1762, however, is the first of the series
that contains the form of "Qualification for a Hunter."
The Royal Plates were still among the most important events of the
Turf; in 1760 there were 18 of these in England and Scotland, and 6
in Ireland, 5 of the latter in Kildare. The "King's Plate Articles,"
which appear in every annual issue of the _Racing Calendars_ for very
many years, were retained in their original form. "Six-year-olds
shall carry 12 stone, 14 lbs. to the stone; three heats"; but in the
_Calendar_ of 1773 a footnote occurs, "By a late order altered to one
heat." Nevertheless, very cursory inspection of the books shows that
much latitude was allowed in weights, distances, and numbers of heats
both before 1773 and after. In 1799 another footnote appears under the
"King's Plate Articles," to effect that the conditions "By a late order
are altered to one heat and different weights are appointed." In spite
of this order races for the plates were on occasion still run in two or
three heats, apparently by permission of the Master of the Horse. We
are not informed what weight the new scale required, but the pages of
the _Calendar_ show they were reduced; authoritative information on the
point appears with the Articles at a later date. In 1807 the number of
Royal Plates had been increased to 23 in Great Britain.
On the 4th May, 1780, the first Derby was run; the value of the stake
was 50 guineas, and the race, open to three-year-old colts at 8
stone, and fillies at 7 stone 11 lbs., distance one mile, was won by
Diomed. In 1801, 1803, 1807, and 1862, the weights for the Derby were
altered, always increasing by a few pounds, till they reached their
present level. By 1793, the Derby had grown into great popularity.
The establishment of the St. Leger, in 1776, and the Oaks in 1779,
are events which also aid to make King George III.'s reign memorable.
Races for Arab produce occur on the Newmarket "cards" about the time
our classic races were founded; sweepstakes of 100 guineas being run
for in 1775, 1776, and 1777. Races for Arabs, however, have never been
continued for many years in succession.
[Illustration: _After J. N. Sartorius_
GREY DIOMED, foaled 1785. By Diomed--Grey Dorimant.
Bred by Sir CHARLES BUNBURY, Bart.]
The accompanying 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 time, a mail
coach making its first trip in August, 1784, when the journey from
Bristol to London, about 119 miles, was performed in 17 hours, or at
a rate of 7 miles per hour. The era of macadamised roads, which was
followed by the short "golden age" of fast coaching, can hardly be said
to belong to this reign, Mr. Macadam's system of road-making having
been generally adopted only in 1819.
The founding of the Royal Veterinary College at Camden Town in 1791 was
by no means the least important event of this reign; it is not too much
to say that it marked an epoch in the history of the Horse; for the
establishment of this institution made an end of the quackery, often
exceedingly cruel, which for centuries had passed for medical treatment
of animals. Until the end of the eighteenth century English veterinary
practitioners had been content to follow in the footsteps of such
teachers as Gervaise Markham, who was the great authority on equine
diseases two hundred years before; and the principles and practice
of Gervaise Markham were hardly free from the taint of witchcraft
and sorcery. Some of the more drastic and obviously useless remedies
had been discredited and abandoned, but at the period of which we
write, English veterinarians appear to have been following their own
way regardless of the more enlightened methods which were beginning
to gain acceptance among the advanced practitioners of France. For to
the French is due the credit of laying the first foundations on which
scientific veterinary surgery was built.
The helplessness of the old school is proved by the ravages of
epizootics. The loss of horses and other live stock when contagious
disease gained footing was enormous, such diseases being entirely
beyond the understanding of veterinarians. The last half of the
eighteenth century saw the establishment of veterinary colleges in
Europe. Lyons led the way in 1761; the next to be founded was that of
Alfort near Paris in 1765; the next, Copenhagen, in 1773; Vienna, 1775;
Berlin, 1790, and London, as already mentioned, in 1791.
Study of animal diseases was stimulated by the invasion of deadly
plagues, which wrought such havoc that stock-raising in some countries
threatened to disappear as an industry. Knowledge of these plagues
and efficient remedies had become essential to the existence of horse
and cattle breeding, and the collection of facts and correct views
concerning such diseases was the greatest task of the veterinary
colleges: the progress made was necessarily slow; but the foundation
of veterinary surgery as a science dates from the establishment of the
colleges named. For many years the new school of veterinarians were
groping in the dark; but if they made no striking advance they did
valuable work in collecting facts and correct views concerning animal
diseases, which were of great value to a later generation.
The Royal Veterinary College was founded by a Frenchman named Charles
Vial de St. Bel, or Sainbel. Sainbel was born at Lyons in 1753. His
talents developed early in life, and after a brief but brilliantly
successful career in France he came over to England in 1788. He
published proposals for founding a Veterinary School in this country,
but his suggestions were not favourably received, and he returned home.
Perhaps the fact that he had married an Englishwoman during his short
residence on this side of the Channel influenced Sainbel in his choice
of refuge when the Revolution threatened; but however that may be, it
was to London that he repaired when political unrest in Paris bade him
seek a new sphere of activity.
By a stroke of good fortune Mr. Dennis O'Kelly selected the young
French veterinary surgeon to dissect the carcase of the great
race-horse Eclipse in February, 1789. Sainbel did the work, and wrote
an "Essay on the Geometrical Proportions of Eclipse," which attracted
immediate notice and established his reputation as a veterinary
anatomist.
He still cherished his scheme for founding a Veterinary School, and
his abilities now being recognised, it was taken up by the Odiham
Agricultural Society. In 1791 Sainbel had the satisfaction of seeing
the school established, in the shape of a farriery with stabling for
fifty horses. He did not live to see the success that was destined to
attend his enterprise, as he died in 1793 in his fortieth year. During
the two years of his work as principal, however, he had laid down the
lines on which scientific veterinary practice should be conducted; in
the words of his biographer, "Sainbel may justly be looked upon as the
founder of scientific veterinary practice in England" (_Dictionary of
National Biography_).
GEORGE IV. (1820-1830).
In George IV. the Turf had, perhaps, the most ardent supporter it ever
boasted among our sovereigns, though the unfortunate Escape affair
caused him to renounce the sport altogether for many years (1791-1810):
The King was passionately fond of horses, and never wearied of trying
hacks and hunters; he got together a splendid breeding stud at Hampton
Court. In the last year of his reign he increased the number of Royal
Plates to 43, of which 27 were run for in England, Scotland and Wales,
and 16 in Ireland: he was also instrumental in bringing about vast
improvements in the royal buckhounds. The legislative measures of
George IV. were a bill to entirely relieve agricultural horses from
taxation, the duties thereon having been reduced by George III. in the
last year of his reign; and a bill to relieve horses let for travelling
of the duties that had been imposed upon them by his father.
WILLIAM IV. (1830-1837).
William IV. had no great love of racing, and his personal attitude
towards the sport is well reflected in his oft-quoted order to "start
the whole fleet" for the Goodwood Cup of 1830. He was, however, fully
alive to the national importance of racing, and did something to
encourage it, presenting the Jockey Club in 1832 with one of the hoofs
of Eclipse set in gold, which, with £200 given by himself, was to be
run for annually by horses the property of members. "The Eclipse Foot"
appears to have brought fields for only four years, and then remained
an ornament of the Jockey Club rooms at Newmarket.
In the same year, 1832, a new schedule of weights was appended to the
Articles for the King's Plates; this shows that the weights to be
carried varied somewhat according to the places where the races were
run. No scale was prescribed for Newmarket, the conditions being left
for settlement by the Jockey Club. In 1837, the last year of William's
reign, the number of Royal Plates had again increased and stood at 48,
34 in England and Scotland, 14 in Ireland.
The king continued the breeding stud at Hampton Court which his brother
had bequeathed to him; if his affection for the Turf was slight, he
deserves the greater credit for having maintained it.
The reign of William IV. saw the coaching age at its best, for rapid
travel by road was raised to a science only a few years before its
extinction by the introduction of railways. Good roads, good horses
and improved coaches in combination rendered it possible to cover long
distances at a uniformly high speed, from 10 to 10½ miles per hour
being the rate at which the mails ran between London and Exeter, London
and York, and other important centres.
HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA.
ACC. JUNE 20, 1837.