It is interesting to take a look at something completely different outside your normal daily life. So on Good Friday we went with some friends to Middleham where the race horse stables were open to the public. One of our friends is a retired Turf Accountant, so he gave us an insight into the racing world from his point of view and most enlightening it was. I will state here and now that I do not approve of gambling in any shape or form, but the racing world would not exist without it, and this was just a look into another world. Our friend, although retired, recognised names of owners, sires and dams and who would be good over different conditions and lengths of races. What beautiful animals, and how pampered, they have every luxury you could think of. There is a very long history of racing on Middleham Moor, and although there are no longer actual races, there are many stables for training race horses and they ride out every morning on the training ground on the Moor. We visited several of the stables, so here are some of the pictures, with little snippets about racing in this part of Yorkshire. These were some of Mark Johnson's at Kingsley House. Evidently if you are a swimmer you are not allowed hay, just remember that. Before the horse on the right went for a swim there was a stable lad with a fishing net ....... This is from the Newcastle Courant for the 6th March 1762 when £50 was a large sum. The races were run over several heats of four miles or three miles, so the horses had to have stamina. The results were then published in newspapers. This is the results from the Newcastle Courant for 3rd of April 1762, it tells you who the owners were, the landed gentry of the north of England, but it does not tell you the names of the horses. Looking at the fanciful names of the horses in the stables at Middleham was most entertaining. But a different newspaper did list the names of the runners in this race. The Leeds Intelligencer of 6th April 1762 shows that there were 12 riders in the subscription race with a total subscription of 220 guineas ! £50 was a more usual prize. Some racehorses were so notable that they gave their names to Public Houses. On the Hull Road in York a short cut to daughter's house is to turn off at the "Bees Wing" pub, but few people seem to know the pub is named after a horse. Another pub in York, no longer in existence, was "The Gimcrack", also named after a famous racehorse, sired by Godolphin Arabian, who was one of three imported stallions to which all thoroughbreds can trace their pedigree. So successful was Gimcrack that he was painted by George Stubbs. Nearer to home there was a pub not far from the Middleham training stables called "The Lady Bab", long since closed. And I remember a pub in Morton on Swale called "The Non-Plus", after another racehorse. The pub has now been pulled down. The naming of racehorses seems to invite wild imagination. I am sure that there are more pubs named after horses. Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath with a jockey and trainer by George Stubbs. Evidently Stubbs painted Gimcrack several times. This is a page from a set of accounts for Middleham Estate in the 16th century. Item 8 says "Paid to Christopher Todd for the gifts to the Plate run for on Middleham Moor £1 10s" . This is a very early mention of races on Middleham Moor and is far, far earlier than any of the text books on the history of racing will tell you. And it is not the earliest page of the accounts, (just the easiest for you to read!) This is Spigot Lodge and the winning horse Laurens was looking over his stable door to an adoring crowd, evidently quite happy to be photographed with his fans. This is now the stable of Karl and Elaine Burk, everything was very neat and tidy. They have about 140 horses in training. The organization, the staff, the mucking out .... the money ! There were sales people standing by some stables trying to invite you to invest in a share of that particular horse. These two images are pages from the 1881 census for Spigot Lodge and show how many young boys were employed by Henry Hall the trainer. Most were in their teens and came from all parts of the country. If you estimate that each stable boy looked after two horses you can work out roughly how many were in training. Lastly here are a couple of cartoons by Rowlandson which give an idea of what racing was like in the past. Both are care of the Lewis Walpole collection (permission to use granted). And a Post Script to last month's blog - a rainy day in the Easter Holidays when I was child minding the older grandchildren and wondering what to amuse them with, we got out a box of old black and white photographs that I had never looked at since I cleared my mother's home out many years ago, and we were wondering who people could be. Some my mother had written on the reverse, but not many. This photograph said "Mr and Mrs Martin", so here they are, Annie Bartrop and Fred Martin. I do not know who the child is (not my mother) or the lady on the right. This tiny little snap is the same size as the prayer book and will now be kept with it.
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AuthorThis is where you can share creativity with me. I believe that everyone has something creative within them, and it is a joy to find ways of being creative. Blogging is NEW to me, so here goes ..... Archives
January 2024
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