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MATCH RACING IN OLD-TIME ENGLAND. Vast Sums Won and Lest Over Such Events Novel Combination Matches. Matches are almost unknown in the horse racing world of today, but they were common enough in the good old days before the sorry mating of racing with business. A match was a truly sporting event: stakes were heavy, vast sums were bet and the excitement of the race would stir the whole nation. So much property was lost by tlie "gentlemen of the south" to the "gentlemen of the north" over a match run at Newmarket at the dawn of the eighteenth century, says the London Evening Standard, that the statute of Queen Anne was enacted to restrict lwtting. Vet in 1731 a Captain Shafto Avon 80.000 by winning a bet that he would not complete fifty miles in two hours with as many horses as he pleased. And in 1S0C the snorting and gallant Colonel Mellish lost bets ,to the tuue of 00,000 in a match for 0.000 his horse breaking down when victory seemed assured. When in 1790 Sir II. Vane-Tempests Hambletonian was matched against Diamond for 15,000 at Newmarket, the place was so crowded with visitors that not a bed was to be had within twenty miles. One hundred thousand people assembled to see a lady ride in a match at Yorke" in 1S01 against a sportsman of celebrity and ,000,000 was said at the least to depend on the result. The ladys horse nearly twenty years old was beaten. The last of these memorable sporting events to arouse an Interest through the whole country took place in 1S51 when Lord Eglingtons Flying Dutchman beat Lord Zetlands Voltlgeur at York. A great deal of money has changed hands over matches in which riders have undertaken to cover twenty miles in the hour, a feat often performed successfully. A great performance was that of a featherweight jockey who. at Newmarket ia 1780, rode a horse twenty-three miles in two or three minutes under the hour. The Karl of March "Old Q." was on the winning side of a sporting match for .5,000 in 1750. when "a carriage with four running wheels and a person in it" was to be drawn by four horses nineteen miles in an hour. The match was won in fifty-throe minutes and twenty-seven seconds, and a grand sight it must have been to see the four horses and their riders setting up such a record. A great ride was that of a Mr. Liiiscombe, who, in 1S24, carried ninety miles in four hours and fifty-three minutes on eight horses. That famous all round sportsman. Squire Osbaldeston, performed a marvelous feat in 1S.",1 when, having undertaken to ride 200 miles in ten hours for S5.000 a side, to say nothing of bets, he finished in eight hours and thirty-nine minutes "as gay as a lark." Ho was forty-four years of age and weighed over eleven stone, yet one of his twenty-eight horses carried him four miles in eight minutes. For several riders the claim lias been made that they have ridden 1,000 miles in 1,000 successive hours: and in 1S01 J. Davies drove one horse in a dogcart 1.000 miles in nineteen days, an average of fifty-two miles a day. Some very old matches find a place in the annals of the turf and tho road, lias not Newmarket Heath seen "geese races" in the days of Lords Rockingham and Orford? At York, in the middle of the eighteenth century, a trick rider rode one mile standing upright on horseback for S500; lie was allowed three minutes and rode home with eighteen seconds in hand. At the end of the century an officer trotted fifteen miles from Chelmsford to Dnnniow in 1 hour 9 minutes, his face to his horses tail. In 1S00 a naval officer rode a blind horse around Sheerness race course for a wager, the con ditions being that he should not touch the reins with his bands. This, however, did not prevent him from having the reins fastened to his feet. To walk fifty miles, drive fifty miles and rido fifty miles in twenty-four consecutive hours was a task that Captain Polhill easily accomplished in 1S2G with nearly live hours to spare. In our own time, 1801, J. 15. Radeliffe succeeded in rowing a quarter of a mile and in swimming, running, cycling and riding a horse the same distance all within the space of fifteen minutes. Merely to think of such a feat is enough to make one tired.
