RACING, the riding heats for a plate, or other premium. See PLATE. The amusement of horse-racing, which is now so common, was not unknown among the great nations of antiquity, nor wholly unpractised by our ancestors in Britain, as we have already mentioned in the article RACE. In 1599, private matches between gentlemen, who were their own jockies and riders, were very common; and in the reign of James I. public races were established at various places, when the discipline, and mode of preparing the horses for running, &c. were much the same as they are now. The most celebrated races of that time were called bell-courses, the prize of the conqueror being a bell: hence, perhaps, the phrase bearing the bell, when applied to excellence, is derived. In the latter end of Charles I.'s reign, races were performed in Hyde-Park. Newmarket was also a place for the same purpose, though it was first used for hunting. Racing was revived soon after the Restoration, and much encouraged by Charles II. who appointed races for his own amusement at Datchet Mead, when he resided at Windsor. Newmarket, however, now became the principal place. The king attended in person, established a house for his own accommodation, and kept and entered horses in his own name. Instead of bells, he gave a silver bowl or cup value 100 guineas; on which prize the exploits and pedigree of the successful horse were generally engraved. Instead of the cup or bowl, the royal gift is now a hundred guineas. William III. not only added to the plates, but even founded an academy for riding; and Queen Anne continued the bounty of her ancestors, adding several plates herself. George I. towards the end of his reign, discontinued the plates, and gave in their room a hundred guineas. An act was passed in the 13th year of the reign of George II. for suppressing races by poneys and other small and weak horses,
Racing
Rack.
horfes, &c. by which all matches for any prize under the value of 50l. are prohibited, under a penalty of 200l. to be paid by the owner of each horfe running, and 100l. by such as advertise the plate; and by which each horfe entered to run, if five years old, is obliged to carry ten ftones; if fix, eleven; and if feven, twelve. It is alfo ordained, that no perfon fhall run any horfe at a courfe unlefs it be his own, nor enter more than one horfe for the fame plate, upon pain of forfeiting the horfes; and alfo every horfe-race muft be begun and ended in the fame day. Horfes may run for the value of 50l. with any weight, and at any place, 13 Geo. II. cap. 19. 18 Geo. II. cap. 34. Pennant's British Zoology, vol. i. p. 6, &c. Berrenger's History and Art of Horfemanfhip, vol. i. p. 185, &c. At Newmarket there are two courfes, the long and the round: the firft is exactly four miles and about 380 yards, i. e. 7420 yards. The fecond is 6640 yards. Childers, the fwifteft horfe ever known, has run the firft courfe in feven minutes and a half, and the fecond in fix minutes forty feconds; which is at the rate of more than forty-nine feet in a fecond. But all other horfes take up at leaft feven minutes and fifty feconds in completing the firft and longeft courfe, and feven minutes only in the fhorteft, which is at the rate of more than forty-feven feet in a fecond. And it is commonly fuppofed that thefe courfers cover, at every bound, a fpace of ground in length about twenty-four English feet. Race-horfes have for fome time been an object of taxation.