BOOKS.

A HISTORY OF THE TURF.*

This first volume of what will be a history of English racing from the earliest times to the last Derby of the nineteenth century is a finely illustrated but excessively heavy book. Mr. Cook is a master of his subject; and though his researches do not appear to have unearthed much new or unknown material, he writes well, and includes some social history in his account of the growth of racing. The Turf—which has now become mainly a gigantic system of gambling, in which the horse is only a racing machine—did not really play much part in English life before the Restoration, and we must

turn over ninetj pages of this book until we come to the fifth chapter on the beginnings of real racing. Mr. Cook thinks that but for the gambling spirit the modern racehorse would never have come into existence at all. Our forefathers, he contends, wanted a good, novel, and exciting means of gambling. They got it. And the useless modern two-year- old (a racing machine, if ever there was one) is the result. We do not agree, and are rather inclined to think that the

betting is a disease and an excrescence which has fixed upon

horse-racing and degraded it. Charles IL and his Court were active patrons of the Turf as we all know :—

"Then Peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excell, Newmarket's glory rose as Britain's fell."

But we hardly see why "by no class should the follies—even the faults—of Charles the Second be more readily forgiven than by the modern racing man "! " Old Rowley," as his friends called him after his favourite horse, hardly deserves the admiration which Mr. Cook (in his anxiety to praise the fathers of the Turf) lavishes upon him.

Nothing approaching the modern thoroughbred racehorse appears until the Eastern blood, in the shape of such famous horses as the Da.rley Arabian' and the Byerly Turk,' was mixed with the blood of the old English stock. It is this blend which soon proved itself superior for racing purposes to anything else, and it is to the importations of late seven- teenth and early eighteenth century breeders that we owe the "English thoroughbred." The Byerly Turk,' one of the three great sires to whom the pedigrees of all modern racers may be traced, was Captain Byerly's charger in William M.'s Irish wars. It was about this time that a man famous in the history of racing entered the Royal service and became super- visor of the racehorses at Newmarket with a salary of 21,000 a year. Mr. Tregonwell Frampton has been called "the Father of the English Turf," and the horses which he owned, or trained for his Royal patrons, during the reigns of William, Anne, George I., and George II. comprise many ancestors of the modern thoroughbred. By 1731 the 'Godolphin Arabian' had arrived in England, and with the two horses already mentioned he formed the last of the famous trio of stallions

whose descendants have been most successful on the Turf

"To those who are unaware of the vitality of the English Turf, the most extraordinary thing abut this period must be that there is any history of the Turf at all, considering the numberless domestic distractions of the realm, the wars outside it, and the absolute distaste with which George I. regarded every form of English sport. Queen Anne, however, was a true sportswoman, who owned and raced her horses with the greatest zest, and if her interest had not been typical of that displayed by many others in her Court, racing would have been in a bad way. It is indeed true that in the fifty years between 1689 and 1739 the three great Eastern sires were imported; and no doubt the Byerly Turk,' the Darley Arabian,' and the 'Godolphin Arabian' had more effect on thoroughbred stock than anything originated by William III., Queen Anne, or George I. But I am not at all sure that the dates 1748, 1758, and 1764 would have been so famous as they are for the births of Matchem,' 'Herod,' and 'Eclipse' respectively, if those important and in-

• 4 History of the English Turf. By Theodore Andrea Gook, )LA., F.S..A. Vol. 1. London : 11. Virtue and Co. [3 vols., £3 Ss. net. Subscribers only; not supplied through the book:m.11am] dispensable events had not oeeurred at a time which gave Society a better opportunity for appreciating the possibilities and joys of racing. As we shall see, by 1748 England was ready to take a fresh start, and a notable indication of this is to be found in the fact that two years after the birth of' Matchem' the Jockey Club was founded."

Before Queen Anne had been dead twelve months one of the most famous horses in the history of racing was foaled. The pedigree of Flying Childers' was almost entirely Eastern,

and there are some authorities who think that in speed he must have excelled that of horses of the present day. He was bred near Doncaster, and was a chestnut with a

white nose and four. white feet., rather over fifteen hands, and, though short and compact, he seems to have possessed an enormous stride. The anecdotes of his speed and victories rest upon uncertain tradition. The Duke of Devonshire bought him as a yearling, and he was not apparently raced before he was six years old. It must not., however, be supposed that the two-year-old races which some think so harmful to the breed of horses are entirely new inventions :--

"The two-year-old scurries and the short races so familiw to the modern racing man are due to conditions at which I have no space to hint as yet. They were known and thought ,if long ago; tor the old Duke of Queensbury in the middle of the eighteeuth century was especially fond of snapping up shout quick races with the help of his jockey, Itichsrd Goodison, of Nowniarlast, familiarly known as hell Fire Dick, from his skid in winning such m itches fur his crafty employer ; and 1r. John Hutchinson, of Shipton, who was • Mi-s Western's' boy in 1751, when he was only fifteen, and aftetwards became trainer to Mr. Peregrine Wentworth and Lord Grosvenor, ant bred swill fine animals as Overtoo ' and 'Hambletonian, is said to have been responsible for the fir-t suggestion of two-year-old riming, which he instituted at York after a m ,tch under those conditions with a sporting parson named Goodricke."

The names as well as the colours of the early racehorbes were peculiar. The grey coats of several of the Eastern stal- lions descended to their offspring, and among the thorough- bred stock of those days we find grey, white, dun, sorrel, mouse-coloured, skewbald, and piebald. But by the time that Matchem," Herod,' and ' Eclipse ' began to influence blood the colours of the best horses changed, and the great preponderance of bay and chestnut at present is the result of prolonged in-breeding to a few favourite families. The names of modern racers are often strange enough, but among the many which appear in the eighteenth century we may select from

Mr. Cook's pages the following, which are stranger than any to-day : Pig," Hell Fire," Twig," Kiss-in-a-Corner," Louse,' Why-do-you-slight-me; and Ugly.' The first volume of this history of racing ends with the middle of the eighteenth century, the foundation of the first of the great classic races and the establishment of the Jockey Club. In 1750 such famous horses of early days as 'Flying Childers," Baeto,' and Bay Bolton' were dead. In that year were born two horses whose offspring, as well as their own performances, will always be famous. We refer to ' Snap ' and Mask.' The former, who was the better horse, was the sire of two hundred and sixty-one winners, who won 202,000 in twenty. one years. The latter was perhaps most famous as the sire of Eclipse' :--

"Ye Sportsmen, for a while refrain your mirth ; Old • Marsk ' is dead! consigned to peaceful earth. The king of horses, now, alas I is goue, Sire of Eclij:we,' who ne'er was beat by one.

Yet though your cheeks you may bedew, 'tis vain, Since 'Mink ' must cease to trip it o'er the plair."

We have already mentioned the illustrations, which are introduced in great profusion. Some are portraits of the patrons of the Turf who are not more intimately connected with its history than Richard IL, Henry VIII., and Nell

Gwynn! Others are more to the point, and the reproduc- tions of racers and old racing pictures from the famous

collections of Lord Rosebery at the Durdans, Prince Christian at Cumberland Lodge, and many others are interesting. In particular, the photogravures deserve high praise. A book which is too heavy to hold in the hands, and which can only be read at a table, runs great risk of not being read stall; and for the hundred who will look at the illustrations perhaps one will read the text through. Mr. Cook's writing might well bear some compression, and there is much in the book that is very remotely connected with the history of racing.