Horse racing

Horse racing - This is usually alleged to be a match between Charles II and Henry Jermyn at Newmarket in 1684, but this is improbable by virtue of the date, the terrain and the Roma encampment. It is surely one of the thousands of unrecorded local events - regular meetings or impromptu matches - which grew enormously between 1660 and 1740. The horses were hunters or Galloways, the riders their own…