Horseracing. Horses were used for harness purposes before they were ever ridden; and chariot-races took place before horses raced under saddle. The earliest mention of chariot-races occurs in Homer (Iliad, xxiii.), who gives a clear description of those contests. The programme of the Grecian games included horseracing in the 33d Olympiad—i.e. the year 648 B.C.; some authorities give the time as the 23d Olympiad, though this earlier date was that of chariot-racing. Racing can thus claim a history, albeit a broken one, of nearly 3000 years, and, at the period above mentioned, it was so far reduced to a system that the horses had to be entered and sent to Elis at least thirty days before the contests began, the riders spending the month in a course of training and exercise. The 71st Olympiad, or 496 B.C., the Greeks instituted a race called the 'Calpe,' which was confined to mares, just as the One Thousand Guineas and the Oaks are now; while according to Grote's History of Greece it would appear that, in course of time, a certain number of races were restricted to colts of one age, so that they might not labour under the disadvantage of competing under equal weights against older horses. In the 10th century, Hugo Capet accompanied his request for the hand of King Athelstan's sister by a present of several German running horses. In the reign of Henry II. 'hackneys and charging steeds' raced at Smithfield; and under Richard I. we hear of a course three miles long, with a prize of 'forty pounds of redy golde' for the winner. To James I. the credit is commonly assigned of having placed the turf on a permanent basis. His taste for racing appears to have been fostered by an accidental circumstance. It is said that several Spanish horses, thrown overboard from the ships of the Armada, reached the coast of Galloway, and proved superior in speed to any of the native horses. The suitability of Newmarket as a site for racing had been perceived prior to the advent of James I., who, however, lost no time in witnessing the races there, as he was present in 1605, probably for the first time, that being two years after his accession to the throne. It is worth mentioning that the king was at Lincoln races in 1607, because, on the occasion of a race taking place there on the 3d April, the king appears to have acted as a sort of clerk of the course, for he caused the track, a quarter of a mile long, to be 'raled and corded with rope and hoops' on both sides, whereby the people were kept out, and 'the horses that runned were seen faire' (Nichols' Progress of James I.). Cromwell was, to a certain extent, an upholder of racing, though perhaps he did more for breeding than for racing; but Charles II. greatly encouraged the turf, and caused races to be held near whatever place he might happen to be staying. Queen Anne, as is well known, kept racehorses, ran them in her own name, and gave plates to be run for. None of the first three Georges signalised themselves by extreme love for the turf; but it was in the twenty-third year of George III. that the Horse Tax, which inter alia imposed a duty of two guineas upon every horse entered or starting for any plate, &c., was passed. Before George III.'s long reign came to an end the Prince of Wales was a prominent figure in the racing world, his career as a horse-owner dating from 1784. In 1786 the stud was sold in consequence of the pecuniary embarrassments of the prince; but, on parliament generously increasing his income, he took to racing once more. When the prince next gave up racing it was for a very different reason. His horse Escape was entered to run on the 20th and 21st at the Newmarket October meeting in 1791. On the first day it was beaten by three others; but on the second day it won easily, whereupon unpleasant remarks were made, the Jockey Club took the matter up, and Sir Charles Bunbury told the prince that if he continued to allow Chifney to ride his horses no gentleman would start against him. Rather than sacrifice his jockey he retired from the turf, though he made a modified reappearance in 1805 at the request of the Jockey Club; but the royal stable was never represented at Newmarket after 1808. William IV. naturally had no taste for racing, but as a sort of duty he kept on so that the nominations should not become void.
Since the accession of Queen Victoria the turf has not received any particular encouragement from royalty; in fact, from a purely racing view a retrograde step has been taken, as in 1886 the Queen's Plates were discontinued, and the sum they represented was increased to £5000, which has been handed over yearly to the Royal Commission on Horse-breeding, who have expended this amount in promoting the breeding of hunters and other half-bred horses. Since the time of William IV. no member of the royal house owned racehorses until the Prince of Wales bought a few.
Of all the meetings held at the present time the one at Chester is possibly the most ancient, as an order bearing date 10th January 1571 provides for the Saddlers' ball, which was of silk, being changed into a silver bell of the value of 3s. 4d., and this bell was to be the prize for the horse 'which, with speed of runninge, then should runne before all others.' In 1610 the one silver bell was changed into three 'cupps,' and the race was then known as 'St George's Race.' In 1623 'one faire silver cupp,' worth about £8, was substituted for the three cups. The Chester Cup, as at present constituted, was first run for in 1824. In Yorkshire, a horseracing county par excellence, races took place, according to Camden's Britannia, as early as 1590 in the forest of Galtres, on the east of York, the prize being a small bell with which the head of the winning horse was decorated; while Drake, in his Eboracum, states that, when the river Ouse was frozen over in 1607, a horserace was run upon it from the tower at Marygate end, through the great arch of Ouse Bridge, to the Crane at Skeldergate Postern. On the Knavesmire racing dates from 1709, though the first race for the King's Guineas did not take place till 1731. The St Leger has done more than anything else to make Doncaster Town Moor famous; yet, though races do not appear to have been held there so early as at Chester or Newmarket, so long ago as 1703 the Yorkshiremen pitted their horses one against another, and twelve years later the corporation of Doncaster contributed towards the stakes. In 1776 a sweepstake was won by the Marquis of Rockingham's Allabulculia, and in 1777 by Mr Sotheron's Bourbon. In 1778 the race, the conditions for which were identical with those governing the aforesaid sweepstakes, first received the name of the St Leger, the proposal to so designate it emanating from the Marquis of Rockingham, who presided at the dinner held at the Red Lion on the entry day. A Colonel St Leger, who lived near
Doncaster, originated the sweepstakes in 1776, and the race received its name in his honour. Since its first institution the conditions of the race and the weights carried by the horses have several times undergone alteration. Ascot (q.v.) has been a seat of horseracing since 1711.
Epsom (q.v.), perhaps the most popular race-course in England, first became famous in 1630 for its mineral waters. It is uncertain when racing was first practised, but it certainly existed in 1648, and in 1660 Pepys regrets his inability to be present at Banstead Downs to see a great horse and foot race. When racing at Epsom was in its infancy the usual custom was to decide a race in the forenoon, after which the whole company went into the town to dinner, and if another race was fixed for the same day, it took place after dinner. In 1780 the Derby Stakes were first instituted, and named after one of the turf's best and most influential supporters—the twelfth Earl of Derby. In point of antiquity, however, the Oaks can claim precedence over the Derby, the 'Ladies' Race' having first taken place in 1779. On thirteen occasions since the Derby was first run the winner of that race has succeeded in also winning the St Leger. Champion achieved the dual victory in 1800; and then ensued a period of forty-eight years before the feat was again accomplished by Surplice in 1848; and then, strange to say, the same horse won both races in two successive years, Flying Dutchman and Voltigeur winning in 1849 and 1850 respectively. The other double winners have been West Australian in 1853; Blair Athol, 1864; Gladiateur, 1865; Lord Lyon, 1866; Silvio, 1877; Iroquois, 1881; Melton, 1885; Ormonde, 1886; and Donovan, 1889. The St Leger has been won by the Oaks winner on six occasions—viz. Formosa, 1868; Hannah, 1871; Marie Stuart, 1873; Apology, 1874; Janette, 1878; and Seabreeze, 1888. The Two Thousand Guineas, Derby, and St Leger have been won by the same horse six times only. The first-named race was first run in 1809, but it was not till 1853 that Mr Bowes's West Australian succeeded in carrying off all three events; the other wearers of what has been termed the 'triple crown' being Gladiateur in 1865, Lord Lyon in 1866, Ormonde in 1886, Common in 1891, and Isinglass in 1893; but in 1868 Formosa, winner of the Oaks, had been previously successful in the Two Thousand, and subsequently won the St Leger. The Derby (won by Lord Rosebery in 1894 and 1895 with Ladas and Sir Visto, and by the Prince of Wales in 1896 with Persimmon) is still regarded as the great race of the year, but has hardly kept up its character. In 1867, when Hermit won, there were thirty starters, but that number has never been reached since; and it is only in the years 1869, 1872, 1874, 1878, and 1879 that the starters have numbered between twenty and thirty. In 1886 and 1888 there were nine competitors only, and a proportionate falling off is noticeable in the cases of the other 'classic' races, as they are termed. This is doubtless owing to the competition of the rich stakes offered by the executive of the gate-money meetings. In 1880 the sum of £2000, at that time the largest amount ever given to any one race, was added to the Manchester Cup. Since that time stakes have been increasing in value. The Sandown Park Eclipse Stakes, founded in 1886, was in 1889 worth £11,160; the Royal Stakes at Kempton Park, first run in 1889, was worth £9500; the Portland Stakes at Leicester, for two-year-olds, amounted to £5250; and the Prince of Wales's Stakes, for three-year-olds, at the same meeting, to £11,000. Whether these valuable prizes are for the ultimate good of the turf remains to be seen; but it is indisputable that they have materially interfered with the old-established races; so in order to keep pace with the times it has been arranged that the Derby shall never be worth less than £5000; the race of 1890 being the first to come under the new order.
During the flat-racing season of 1889 the value of the stakes competed for reached the unprecedented sum of £480,889, 18s., of which no less than £73,858, 10s. was won by the Duke of Portland, a sum very far in excess of the winnings of any other owner. Donovan alone won £38,666, 15s.; Ayrshire, £20,660; and Semolina, £9285, 8s. Mr H. Milner was credited with £21,545, 6s., and Chevalier Ginistrelli with £11,867, 11s. For yearlings of fashionable pedigree large prices are always forthcoming; in 1876, 4100 guineas were paid for Maximilian, and in 1889 Colonel North gave 4000 guineas for Garonne. But till then unheard of prices were reached when at Doncaster in 1891 Common was bought by Mr Blundell Maple, M.P., for £15,000, and an offer of £20,000 was subsequently refused. And Ormonde, sold in 1890 to a gentleman in Buenos Ayres for £15,000, was bought by Mr MacDonough of San Francisco for £30,000.
Flat-racing is altogether under the direction of the Jockey Club, and, by rule 65, any horse running at a meeting not under Jockey Club rules is thenceforward disqualified for ever from running at meetings at which the rules are in force. The Jockey Club appears to have come into existence during the reign of George II.; and the first mention of it occurs in Heber's Racing Calendar for 1758, in connection with a regulation passed in the March of that year directing all riders to pass the scales when they came in, under pain of dismissal. In the volume on Racing in the 'Badminton' series, the writer on the 'History of the Jockey Club' says that tradition assigns to the year 1750 the origin of the Jockey Club. At any rate a room on the site of the present Jockey Club buildings was erected in 1752 on ground leased by William Erratt, a horse-dealer, to the Duke of Lancaster and the Marquis of Hastings, in trust for fifty years. The rules of racing are promulgated by this body, and are altered from time to time as circumstances may suggest. In 1889 the rules were entirely recast, and came into force with the commencement of the season of 1890. The new code confers increased responsibilities and power upon the officials, and makes several changes in the rules which had previously been in force. The 'apprentice allowance' has been done away with, and the restriction which formerly precluded foreign horses from being handicapped in England unless they had been six months in the country has been abolished. The object of the rule, which to some persons was very obnoxious, was to enable the handicapper to have some knowledge of the previous performances of the horses to which he had to assign weight. The Jockey Club is a self-constituted body, and many of its acts are neither recognised nor governed by the law of England; yet with respect to racing it discharges many important functions. No duty, however, has been more disagreeable than the one it was called upon to perform in 1889, when the stewards, Mr James Lowther, Lord March, and Prince Soltykoff, sat as arbitrators in the case of Sir George Chetwynd v. Lord Durham, which was an action originally brought in a court of law, but afterwards referred, with the assent of both parties, to the Jockey Club. The proceedings arose out of a speech made by Lord Durham at the Gimcrack dinner at York in 1887, in which sundry charges were made against certain persons on the turf.
According to Ruff's Guide, 2100 horses ran in the year 1889. Of this number 988 were two-year-olds; 523 were three-year-olds; four-year-olds numbered 277; and there were 312 horses of the age of five years and upwards. In the same publication the names of 108 trainers appear; and there are 33 officials who have received licenses to act in various capacities at race-meetings. During the season of 1890, 105 meetings were fixed to take place between the 24th March and the 22d November; and the names of 195 jockeys appear in the table of winning mounts for the year 1889. The earnings of a jockey in good practice are very great. The regulation fee is £5 for a winning mount and £3 for a losing one; but it is comparatively seldom that a jockey's remuneration is confined to the minimum scale. Bets are often made for him; retaining fees run to £1000 or more; presents are almost invariably given for successful riding; and in some cases the stakes of great races have been promised to jockeys if they win. It is not in England alone that horseracing flourishes. Many meetings are held in France, the chief races run there being the Derby, first run in 1836; the Oaks, in 1843; and the Grand Prix. Important meetings are held in Germany and at Vienna; while racing is becoming popular in Italy. Some of the great English races have been won by French horses. Thus, the Goodwood Cup was won in 1853, 1855, 1857, and 1873 by Jonnence, Baroncino, Monarque, and Flageolet respectively. Mortemer won the Ascot Gold Cup in 1871, and Henry in the succeeding year; while Boiard in 1874 and Verneuil in 1878 must be added to the list. In 1876 Chamant and Jongleur between them carried off the Middle Park Plate, Dewhurst Plate, and Criterion Stakes; Camellia won the One Thousand in 1876, and Chamant the Two Thousand in 1877; Enguerrande and Camellia ran a dead-heat for the Oaks in 1876, and the St Leger fell to Rayon d'Or in 1879; and, in addition to these victories of French horses, Fille de l'Air carried off the Oaks in 1864, and Gladiateur, as already mentioned, won the Two Thousand, Derby, and St Leger in 1865. The long list of successes gained by the French horses in 1876, coupled with the fact that so few French races were open to English horses, caused the late Lord Falmouth to give notice to the Jockey Club in that year that he would bring forward a motion to the effect that no foreign horses should be allowed to compete in England until the bar to the admission of English abroad was removed. The idea, however, did not find favour, and the motion was allowed to drop. The successes of American horses date back to 1857, in which year Prioress won the Cesarewitch for Mr Ten Broeck, that gentleman's Starke being the winner of the Goodwood Cup in 1859 and of the Goodwood Cup in 1861; Iroquois was the Derby winner of 1881, and of the Prince of Wales's Stakes (Ascot) and of the St Leger as well; while Foxhall took the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire in 1881, and the Ascot Cup in 1882. In more recent years Wallenstein and Passaic achieved some successes. Hungary has been represented on English racecourses by Kisber, the Derby winner of 1876, and by Kincsem, who won the Goodwood Cup in 1878. The entries for the Derby of 1890 included two Australian colts sent over by the Hon. James White. Although trotting is the national sport in America, the galloping thoroughbred is somewhat growing in favour. Russia has its races; the turf exists as an institution in the colonies, at the Cape, and in India; and racing, for a few years prior to 1889, advanced so quickly into popular favour at Buenos Ayres that the export trade to that place was a very brisk one, and an English racing man or two and a trainer were tempted to go over to the Argentine Republic. The native trainers, however, were successful over the Englishmen.
The rules of racing in England provide that in each day's racing there shall be two races of 1 mile or upwards, not being selling races; and no race shall be run over a less distance than 5 furlongs. In the opinion of those who have the interests of the turf at heart, there are too many of what are colloquially known as '5-furlong scrambles,' which make shifty horses and bad jockeys. The rule as to the number of races in a day of 1 mile or upwards is of course strictly complied with; but it is at comparatively few meetings that a 2-mile race is witnessed. At Ascot there are several events run over 2 miles; the Gold Cup course is miles; and that for the Alexandra Plate 3 miles; while the Goodwood Cup distance is also miles, and the Cesarewitch is run over miles.
The weights carried by racehorses are assigned in various ways. In some races, like the Derby, Oaks, and St Leger, which are confined to horses of one age, all carry the same weight; but if, as in the Derby, both fillies and colts are eligible to compete, the fillies have a sex allowance of 3 lb. Next come the weight-for-age races, open to horses of different ages, in which case horses of the same age carry the same weight, the younger ones less than older ones. Thirdly comes the handicap, which, owing to the field it opens to fraud, is said to have been responsible for many of the malpractices which occasionally take place in connection with the turf: it was brought into fashion by the promoters of race-meetings sometimes finding it difficult to provide sufficient sport for the spectators and the owners of horses. When racing was in its infancy all horses, which were, however, usually five or six years of age, carried the same weights, so that if a four-year-old happened to start he met maturer horses on disadvantageous terms; and, when a horse had made a name for himself, no others were entered against him. Weight-for-age races (in which horses of six years old and upwards give weight, according to a scale laid down, to younger competitors) and give-and-take plates were gradually introduced, the give-and-take plate being one in which a certain weight, say 9 stone, was assigned to horses of a certain size, 14 hands, for example. Horses above that size carried 7 lb. extra for each inch, while those who fell short of that measurement were allowed 7 lb. for each inch below 14 hands. Handicaps were known in the 18th century, but it was not till about 1818 that they figured often in the programmes of race-meetings. Since then they have increased in number.
The handicaps at the meetings of which the Jockey Club stewards are also the stewards of the meeting are made by the official handicapper, who is a salaried official of the Jockey Club; but his services are retained for many other meetings, for which he obtains extra remuneration from those employing him. In racing it is sought to equalise the chances of the different horses by apportioning to each the weight which, in the opinion of the handicapper, will bring them together, his aim being to bring about a dead-heat by all the horses competing. The conditions of a handicap are duly published, and the date at which the entries close is notified. The handicapper then proceeds to consider the powers of the horses, and assigns to each horse the weight he thinks it ought to carry, and in due course the several owners know the handicapper's estimation of their horses by the publication of the weights in the Racing Calendar. Those who think that the handicapper has entertained an exaggerated estimate of their horse's powers can save further cost in the way of forfeit by declining to accept; and then the next piece of intelligence published in the Sheet Calendar is the 'acceptances,' as they are called—in other words, the names of the horses whose owners are prind facie satisfied with their chances, though it by no means follows that all those that are 'left in,' as the phrase runs, will start for the race. It frequently happens that the horse to which is allotted the top weight is among the non-acceptors, not always because his owner thinks that the horse cannot give away the required weight, but because he is occasionally unwilling for him to carry so much for fear of breaking him down, of which there is obviously more chance under 9 stone than under 6 or 7 stone.
Moreover, the conditions of nearly every handicap provide that a horse winning a race after the publication of the weights shall carry a penalty, which must be added to the weight originally allotted by the handicapper; and the incurring of this penalty is often the reason of horses not starting. When the top weight or weights do not accept, the highest weight accepting is raised to that which was originally the maximum of the handicap, and then, assuming the maximum to have been 9 stone, a notice appears in the Calendar to the effect that, the highest weight accepting being 8 stone 4 lb. (or whatever the impost may have been), it has been raised to 9 stone, and the others in proportion. The minimum weight to be carried in a handicap or any other race is fixed by the rules of racing at 6 stone, and by the 27th rule the top weight to be allotted in a handicap shall not be less than 8 stone 12 lb. For a year or two prior to 1889 a rule was in force that apprentices who had not ridden three winners might claim a 5-lb. allowance so long as the weight to be carried did not fall short of the minimum weight permitted. The object of the rule was to encourage the employment of lads not yet out of their time who gave promise of riding well; but after the regulation had been in force for a short time it was urged that the 5-lb. allowance upset the work of the handicapper; so, when the rules of racing were revised by the Jockey Club in 1889, the section authorising the apprentice allowance was excised.
To decide upon the weights horses shall carry is no easy task. The handicapper must be a regular attendant at race-meetings and able to form his own judgment on what he sees; for the position a horse may occupy at the termination of a race is not necessarily any criterion of his true form. He may be out of condition; or, when his jockey finds he cannot win with him, a horse is almost invariably eased and finishes seventh or eighth when he might have been third or fourth; and the handicapper must also possess sufficient perception to see when an attempt is made to throw dust in his eyes. Even so astute a man as the late Admiral Rous occasionally made mistakes; and whoever may for the time being occupy that difficult position must abandon all hope of pleasing everybody.
See J. C. Whyte, History of the British Turf (2 vols. 1840); James Rice, History of the Turf (2 vols. 1879); W. Day, The Racehorse in Training (1880), and The Horse and how to Breed Him (1888); Hare, History of Newmarket (1884); History of Racing and Steeplechasing, 'Badminton' series, Duke of Beaufort, editor (1886); Touchstone, Pedigree, Description, and History of Celebrated English and French Racehorses, 1764 to 1887; an anonymous History of Racing (1862); Joseph Osborne, The Horse-breeder's Handbook (1881), and Companion to the Stud-book (Epsom, 1889); The General Stud-book, published every five years (vol. xvi. 1889); Weatherleys' Portraits of Celebrated Racehorses (4 vols. 1887); Taunton, Portraits of Celebrated Racehorses (4 vols. 1889); Weatherleys' yearly Racing Calendar; Ruff's Guide to the Turf; R. Black, Horse Racing in England (1894). See also STEEPLECHASE, TROTTING, BETTING.