The Stamford Mercury is one of England’s oldest papers in England, which means we can get a snapshot
of Stamford life that we do not get from many other towns and cities. One of those snapshots is of horseracing in Stamford.
Stamford was a pleasure town in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and had all of the attractions
you would expect such a town to have, including a
well-known racecourse. In September 1718 the Mercury revealed the horses who
were entered into the Three Plates run at the Stamford Races on the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth day of that month, and of course, the
winners too.
Tuesday the 17th for the Ten Pound Plate
Robert Mackmillian’s Black-Horse, Dunham
Mr Thompson’s Bay-horse, Spider
Mackmillian’s horse Spider won.
Wednesday 18th, for the Ladies Plate of Twenty
Pound,
Mrs Wilson’s Chestnut-Mare, Brunnet.
The Countess of Gainsborough’s Bay-Horse, White-Foot.
Mr Copinger’s Grey-Horse, Cheater.
Marquis of Lindsey’s Chestnut-Horse, Cripple.
Mr. Thompson’s Chestnut-Horse, Squirrel.
The Countess of Exeter’s Gray ------ Loyalist.
The Duchess of Rutland’s Chestnut-Horse, High-Low.
Mr Parker’s Gray-Mare, Smiling Jenny.
Marquis of Lindsey’s Chestnut-Horse, Cripple, Won.
Thursday the 19th, for the Twenty Five Pound
Plate
Mr Noel’s Chestnut-Mare, Brunnet.
Countess of Exeter’s Gray ------ Loyalist.
The Duchess of Rutland’s Bay-Horse, Farmer.
Sadly the information slips onto a page that is not in
the collection, so we do not know the other horses that entered, or which horse won.
There are a few observations to take away from this race,
firstly the unusual, and at times offensive, names of the horses. It is likely
that the names were chosen in part to elicit laughs from the supportive calls
of the punters, and also the insults waged from the winner, who would no doubt
have had great mirth in celebrating the victory of a horse named ‘Cheater’ over
its rivals. Secondly, and unsurprisingly, the vast majority of people entering
horses in the races are local nobility. But what might surprise you is that most
of them were related to each other!
The Countess of Gainsborough, Dorothy Noel, was the
daughter of the 1st Duke of Rutland, John Manners of Belvoir Castle,
and the granddaughter of Lady Elizabeth Bertie. Mr Noel was almost certainly her
relative given that Dorothy’s mother was Catherine Wriothesley Noel, and her
husband Baptist Noel was her first cousin. She was also competing against her
sister-in-law Lucy Manners (nee Sherard), Duchess of Rutland, who had married
her brother, also named John, in 1713. Not only was she her sister-in-law, but
she was also her aunt Elizabeth’s sister (she had married her mother’s brother
John).
Dorothy Noel was also the second cousin of the Marquis of
Lindsey, Peregrine Bertie, who gained the title after his father was advanced
to the Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. Peregrine, of Grimsthorpe Castle near
Bourne, had married Jane Brownlow of Belton House in 1711. Jane’s sister
Elizabeth had married John Cecil, 6th Earl of Exeter in 1699,
meaning that the Marquis was competing against (and beat) his sister-in-law, second
cousin, and her relatives with his unfortunately-named horse. It is such a
shame that the record does not exist of the entrants and winners in the twenty-five-pound
plate, for we can imagine that it was very hotly contested within the wide and
convoluted family tree watching the spectacle.
For further information about the racecourse, this website is recommended http://www.greyhoundderby.com/Stamford%20Racecourse%20UK.html
Reference: Stamford, September 17., Stamford Mercury,
September 25 1718, p.11.
