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QUEER ENGLISH ENDURANCE MATCHES Some Sporting Events Over Distances of Ground in Days of Long Ago Thormauby in the London Sportsman writing of equine endurance tells these tales talesA A very extraordinary match was run at North ¬ ampton races in 1791 between a bay and a black pony at two fourmile heats The black was thirteen hands two and onehalf inches high the bay mare barely thirteen hands They ran the first four miles carrying 14st each in twelve minutes tlte second In thirteen and onehalf minutes The odds were 10 to S on the black which won by about half a length length4A 4A curious match was made at Epsom in 1795 for 525 between Mr Griscwoods horse Crop and Mr M Harris roan Crop was to go 100 miles before the roan went SO Crop ran his first twenty miles in one hour and a minute but going around the eleventh time was nearly knocked up The other was also so tired that lie could not even trot After this they walked round the course with their riders on their backs people going before them with bowls of oats and locks of hay to entice them on By tho time the roan had done his eighty miles Crop had only accomplished ninetyfour and con sequentl y lost lostA A Yorkshire clothier once for a wager rode his pony which was well stricken in years and under thirteen hands high eighty miles in eleven hours and liftytive minutes on the Morpeth Koad The time allowed was thirteen hours The man weighed 14st S lb the horse was only of the common cart ¬ horse breed and had previously been used In that capacity which renders th feat much more rel markablo and when it was over he seemed none the worse for his exertion A still more astonishing feat was performed many years ago by a horse which had never been bred to the business A coachman weighing 14st was sent post haste from Arlington to Exeter for a physician his master being dangerously ill The distance is fortyseven miles the road was then a bad one and the horse accomplished It in fortyseven seconds under three hours Mr Cooper ThornliHI of the Bell Inn Stilton made a match for a large sum to ride three times between Stilton and London 213 miles In fifteen hours no limit being placed on the number of horses he might use The feat was accomplished on April 29 1745 and the following shows the result resultFrom From Stilton to London 35259 35259From From London to Stilton r 057 057From From Stilton to London 34950 34950This This was three hours twentysix minutes and eight seconds under tho time allowed allowedIn In 1790 a gentleman drove a single horse chaise fifty miles on the Hertford Road in four hours and fiftyfive initiates the time allowed being Jive hours In the same year a man rode from the fourth milestone on the Essex Road to Chelmsford twice and back again one hundred miles in fif ¬ teen hours and a half though he had sixteen hours to do it in Soon afterward Mr Samuel Bendall of Dnrsley Gloucestershire at the age of seventysix rode a thousand miles in a thousand consecutive hours on the same horse horseA A man has been known more than once to beat a horse in speed In 1751 a noted pedestrian named Pinwire for a bet of 250 walked against a horse for twelve hours and beat it easily This was not the only time his two legs came off victorious against four in several successive years lie beat some of the best roadsters in England EnglandThe The late Mr Edward Hayward Budd one of the finest allround athletes of his own or indeed any other day and an especially good sprint riiu iier tells the following story of how he was once matched to run against a horse One day after dinner a son of General Archdale offered to back his horse to do a hundred yards against me for 50 I entirely forgot to make it fifty yards out and back added to wlilch disadvantage on my side lie brought his horse to tin post In a complete lather Notwithstanding my mistake we started and as I had expected I was beaten but he did not get away from me until we had run eighty yards and then he splashed the mud in my face as the ground was much softened by rain It was in Hyde Park and not much to my credit on a Sunday morning Races between pedestrians and equestrians have of course been a familiar spectacle lu the great circus shows but then these are probably arranged affairs and the horses are not tlyers tlyersA A singular story of equine sagacity and emula ¬ tion perhaps almost without parallel In sporting annals is the following In September 179 at a race nt Eniiis in Ireland Atalanta a mare belong ¬ ing to Mr Eyre took the lead of three other horses entered for the race She had however scarcely MIII half a mile when she fell and dropped her rider Recovering herself immediately she daslfed for ¬ ward riderless and preserved the lead to the end of the li at during which she passed her stable and the winning post twice nor did she stop until the Hag was dropped to the winner then after trotting a fewpaces she wheeled around and came up to the scales to weigh During the race she fre ¬ quently looked behind and quickened her pace as she saw the oilier horses gaining on her
