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Excerpt from Famous Horses: With Portraits, Pedigrees, Principal Performances, Descriptions of Races, and Various Interesting Items Extending Over a Period of Nearly Two Centuries E earliest records in connection with the British Turf are very meagre. It is stated that horsemen in large numbers opposed the landing of the Romans, and we learn from the Venerable Bede that in a.d. 631, in the reign of Edwin the Great, the English first began to saddle horses. The earliest mention of running horses in England refers to those sent in the ninth century by Hugh, founder of the Royal House of Capet in France, as a present to King Athelstan, whose sister, Ethelswitha, he was desirous of marrying. In the reign of William the Conqueror, Roger de Bellesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, imported some stallions from Spain, and we find their produce celebrated after wards by Drayton the poetf fitz-stephen, a monk of Canterbury, and secretary to the celebrated Arch bishop a'beckett, in the reign of Henry II., refers to some rough-and-ready races. At Smithfield (smooth-field), in which the jockies, inspired with thoughts of applause, and in the hepe of victory. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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