esteemed to be the finest and best bred mare of her time in England, was by Makeless out of a Royal Mare, not one of the original imported stock, but a daughter of one of those in the D'Arcy or Sedbury stud. Captain Hartley's celebrated Blind Stallion was by the Holderness Turk out of the above-mentioned Makeless Mare. We will here observe, that the Holderness Turk was imported by Sir Robert Sutton, who was Queen Anne's Ambassador at the Ottoman Porte: this horse, as his name will testify, was in the possession of the D'Arcy family, ennobled by the creation of the Earldom of Holderness immediately after the Revolution of 1688. The first Peer of the name took a very distinguished part in bringing about this event, and was the Commoner who met the Earls of Devonshire and Danby at Whittington near Chesterfield. To return to horses of an earlier date.-The Duke of Berwick, natural son of James the Second, brought from the siege of Buda, in Hungary, the Stradling or Lister's Turk, during the reign of that Monarch: some good horses descended from him. King William the Third's Barb Chillaby, famous for his ferocity and for his cat as well as the Godolphin Arabian, was the sire of Greyhound, begotten in Barbary on a natural Barb mare, and foaled at Hampton Court. Greyhound was afterwards a very favorite stallion in the North of England. The White-legged Lowther Barb and the Taffolet Barb were about of the same period. Captain Byerly's Turk too was a charger, and carried that Officer in the Irish campaigns of William the Third: many excellent racers sprung from him; as for example, Blackhearty, Basto, Jigg, and Archer, both good racers and stallions. About the end of the 17th century also was imported the Selaby Turk, by King William's stud-master, a Mr. Marshall. About the same time the D'Arcy White and Yellow Turks came over-very capital blood, as proved by their produce, some of which we have already enumerated. At a later period, Mr. Curwen, of Workington in the county of Cumberland, purchased two high-bred Barbs in Paris from two natural sons of Louis the Fourteenth-the Count de Byram and the Count de Thoulouse. These had been originally presented to the French Monarch by Muley Ishmael, Emperor of Morocco, and probably furnished to M. Eugene Sue that part of the ground-work of his romance of the Godolphin Arabian. The first and most celebrated of these was kept by Mr. Curwen, and obtained the title par excellence of "the Bay Barb." He was, as an old authority on these subjects observes, "as well known to Sportsmen by that name as he would have been provided there had never been another Barb horse of his color in the kingdom." The Thoulouse Barb was sold to Sir John Parsons in the South of England, and was the sire of a few very excellent racers. We have already mentioned the St. Victor Barb as the sire of the Bald Galloway; cotemporary with him were the two Barbs of Mr. Hutton-one a white horse, given to that gentleman in 1700 by King William; the other a bay, which is also sometimes called the Mulso Turk. The Pulleine Arabian preceded these, as he must have been alive at the Revolution. The Acaster Turk, and others, might be added to our list, but it is not to be expected that this should be perfectly complete. The horses which have been mentioned are the principal and most celebrated original founders "of the race of English thorough-bred horses. Up to the year 1710 our records are exceedingly meagre, having no regular reports or calendars of the races. Ere we proceed further we shall say a few words on the subject of the prizes that were run for in the earliest recorded days of English racing, by that breed which the Nobility and Gentry were improving at so much pains and expense. With the exception of particular Matches of great interest, when very large sums were contended for, their contests seem to have been "all for glory," and to have been carried on, not in a spirit of gambling, but in that of honorable sporting rivalry. Compared with the expense of keeping a stud, the Plates and public prizes were of the most insignificant value; for we find a large Field contending at four-mile heats for a twenty or even for a ten-pound prize. True it is that the mystery of "book-making or betting round" was then altogether unknown. Such was the state of turf affairs when our systematic records commence, about the middle of the reign of Anne. Among those who made Matches for large sums may be mentioned the Dukes of Devonshire, Somerset, and Rutland, the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, several Commoners of fortune, and the famous, or, if our readers prefer the epithet, the notorious Frampton: on these occasions the betting was very high and even ruinous from the rivalry of parties, each confident of the superiority of a favorite horse: but these were the exceptions to the ordinary course of matters on the Turf. In order to place this in a more lively light, we will refer to the earliest authentic returns of York races, which we have just now before us. The Meeting in question was at that time the foremost and greatest in the North of England, as indeed it continued to be until within a very recent period. As a county meeting, at which rank, wealth, and beauty were concentrated, it was of that magnitude which in all probability we shall never see again. The list of prizes in the year 1709 will sufficiently prove that it was for honor, not for profit, that the "terrible high-bred cattle" in those days stripped, when trained and sweated for the course. On the first day there was run for, as the principal race of the Meeting, a Gold Cup value £50, at four-mile heats, of which three were run by four six-year-old horses, carrying 12st. each. On the second, five horses of high character contended at four-mile heats for a Plate of £40, Mr. Childers's Whitenose, a celebrated mare, winning; Castaway, a famous horse of Sir William Strickland, being second; and the noted Witty Gelding alias Merryman being third. Two others, one of which belonged to a Mr. Place, son, we believe, of old Noll's stud-groom, were drawn or distanced in the third heat. Merryman won the first heat, Castaway the second, and the mare the third and fourth. Certainly £40 for the winner and £10 for the second would now be esteemed but scurvy rewards for four four-mile heats! On the third race-day a Plate of £10 was, after three four-mile heats, accompanied by a very severe struggle and not a little fighting and jostling, awarded to the horse that came in third, the first and second being disqualified. Corn and hay were doubtless cheaper in those days than at present; yet due allowance being made for diminished expense on this score, the amount of the prizes would be no great consideration and but little compensation. To proceed.-In 1710 the Gold Cup was raised to the value of £60, and was won at three four-mile heats by Sir Matthew Peirson's horse Bay Bolton, giving a year, and beating a field of eight six-yearold horses. The £40 Plate was won by another noted horse, Grey Ramsden; and Mr. Childers won the third Plate, increased to £20, a numerous field of horses contending. In the following year, 1711, Queen Anne gave a Cup value 100 guineas, no doubt a great attraction, the moderate prizes already established being continued: and from this period York Races progressively advanced in interest for many years. That the simplicity which characterised the early proceedings of the Turf should have been so entirely lost is deeply to be regretted. Horse-racing is now become almost completely a matter of gambling : hence it is often more profitable to lose than to win a race. A few millionaires, who never owned a race-horse in their lives, and who would scarcely have distinguished Priam from one of the leaders in Lord Fitzwilliam's coach, if the two horses had been mounted and paraded before the stand together, can now influence the deepest springs that exist in the complicated machinery of the Turf. The Court of King's Bench now supersedes the authority of the Jockey Club; and this the only legitimate tribunal for disputed points in racing law, as being the only tribunal which understands them, is now deprived of its supremacy by the very men who, one would have imagined, ought to have been its stanchest supporters. We indeed consider these proceedings to be the effects of decay in the true spirit of the Turf-a decay, however, that appears to defy the physician's aid. The oldest of our personal reminiscences of the Turf are connected with Peregrine Wentworth, Esq., who, if we remember correctly, boasted a year before his death of his having attended the August Meeting at York fifty-nine years successively! This period extended back to about the year 1750, when Mr. Wentworth had scarcely attained his majority: he had been in the very foremost ranks of the British Turf from the days of Lord March and O'Kelly down to the present century; and we distinctly remember anecdotes which related the comments and described the indignation of this "fine Old English Gentleman," when in his latter days, he heard men whom he had known in the lowest and most menial stations of life, offering the odds in hundreds round against a Field of horses. Another ardent admirer and truly honorable supporter of the Yorkshire Turf, and not by a great many years junior to Mr. Wentworth himself, namely, William Garforth, Esq., did not scruple, as we can speak from our own knowledge, to assign it as a reason for quitting the Turf, about the year 1820, "that no honorable man, at least in his opinion, could train either with confidence or satisfaction whenever Gentlemen betted round and made up their books as a matter of business." Perhaps this is not the proper place to enter at length into this subject; but these observations we could not entirely suppress when describing the very different state of the British Turf in the infancy of this noble amusement. Before we conclude the present Chapter, we are anxious to say a few words on the often-repeated story of Tregonwell Frampton and the barbarous usage of his celebrated horse Dragon. Almost all the books which have been published on the subject of horse-racing, or any of its branches, commence with this lamentable tale: but in our opinion it contains within itself internal evidence which is perfectly decisive as to the utter falsity of the story as there related. The whole narrative rests on the authority of Dr. Hawksworth, and is given in No. 37 of "The Adventurer." That the writer in question was not alive in the days of Dragon is certain, being only twelve years old when Tregonwell Frampton died, in 1727, aged 86. We find in the earliest accounts of racing that Mr. Frampton had a horse named Dragon running in 1712. Dr. Hawksworth was therefore writing, being in no way connected with the Turf, from popular gossip about half a century after the transaction. It is necessary in the first place to be aware of this. In the commencement of his story Dr. Hawksworth introduces poor Dragon, in an imaginary elysium of birds and beasts, as relating his own mischances in a former state of existencethat he had won his master many races in so superior a style as to be "cried down". —a proceeding never existing as far as we can learn except in the Doctor's imagination; meaning thereby, that he, Dragon, was specially excepted from every public prize, and, therefore, while in full form for racing, he had been put to the stud. After he had been used as a stallion several years, a certain mare had established a character so exalted on the Turf that Dragon was taken up and put into training and matched against her for £10,000. The mare, we are told, was distanced by Dragon in the first heat. The idea is really so absurd, to suppose that any horse, after covering several years, should resume the light and airy character of a race-horse; or that Frampton, under Dragon's circumstances as thus described, should not have made a waiting race, is not to be believed. These, however, are minor considerations: the end of the story is, that the owner of the mare challenged any gelding in the world to run the next day for twice the sum, that is to say, £20,000; and Tregonwell Frampton, the most accomplished and knowing Turfite of his day, is said to have been mad enough to accept it, under an idea that Dragon could be castrated the next morning, and immediately after the operation beat the mare in question. There is certainly no man at the present time who would stake £100 to £10,000 on such a chance. We are, however, told that Dragon won the second race likewise, though at the cost of his life. If any person can credit this tale-any person, we mean, who is possessed of the slightest practical knowledge of such matters-he has our full permission; but for our own part, we must have much better evidence than Dr. Hawksworth's ere we can digest the story. In addition to this, we will just observe that Dragon was running at the same time that Old Wyndham, Old Merlin, and Bay Bolton were on the Turf; and all we know for certain of his performances is, that Bay Bolton beat him in two Matches! Of the particulars of these we are entirely ignorant. LIVERPOOL JULY MEETING. THE gathering on the plain of Aintree at the July summons generally teems with interesting and influential bearings upon future events, as well as important speculations; and we are proud to say the last Meeting has in no way deteriorated from, but rather advanced, in its position. On no former occasion have I witnessed so numerous an assemblage of sporting characters from all parts as was congregated at this enterprising Port, desirous, no doubt, to bring good cargoes home from their voyage, and sure enough there were plenty of seas of speculation on which to sail in quest of treasure. The course was in finer order than usual from the recent moist weather, but the additional rain which fell on the two last days, and which tended in no small degree to limit the number of spectators, made it rather heavy. The numbers of horses sent to the Mecting were, however, I believe greater than usual-the South, the North, the West, &c. all contributing their portions to swell the "tottle." The appearance of Deception, whose presence was attributed to the object of obtaining an allowance of 5lb. at Goodwood for running here, but who nevertheless appeared desirous of also reaping profit as well by the journey, gave no small degree of interest to the character of the Meeting. The evercelebrated Trades Cup, from the alteration in the declaration of forfeits until after the Newcastle Meeting, caused by St. Bennett's easy victory there against Lightfoot and others, induced a more numerous declaration of five-pound-penalties than usual; and although the acceptances thereby were considerably limited, yet the event produced a very numerous start, very important speculative object; the running for which, as well as the Liverpool St. Leger, introduced to us new performers, perhaps stars of character, to play prominent parts in the forthcoming St. Leger on the Doncaster arena.-' -Their and others' performances, deeds, and doings I now proceed to notice seriatim. Tuesday. The sports commenced with the usual preface or introduction, the Croxteth Stake, with a Field of five— Mr. Ramsay's bl. h. The Doctor, by Dr. Syntax, 5 yrs (Cartwright) Mr. Mostyn's b. f. Wonder, 4 yrs (T. Roberts) ..... 2 3 4 5 The winner of the Oaks bore away decidedly the tide of public favor, and balanced the scale of the whole Field, the medical gentleman being at a discount of 7 to 4.-Soon after starting The Doctor proceeded to undeceive Deception, by giving her a taste of his speed, and went away to make very strong running, the favorite mare waiting close upon him for about a quarter of a mile, when, impatient of further restraint, she went a-head, and raced away (certainly not good policy) with a lead of a length round the Bridge turn, up by the Canal side, to past the last turn, every turn of which her rider turned to no advantage, for he ran her excessively wide of his line. However here the contest was reduced to a Match, for the other three were left far in the rear. The mare then followed up her running, though, to the eye of the practical Sportsman, evidently under defeat, and at the half distance |