The wagers that were made were mostly in large sums, and we are told that, to the surprise of the majority of the betting men “and their subsequent discomfiture,” the race, in which there were six “tryers,” was won by an outsider, the property of a popular sportsman, Sir George Bowes.
The judge in this race was a Mr Humphrey Wyvell, and so greatly annoyed did the crowd become at the defeat of the favourite that they made a desperate attempt to attack the judge, with the intention of injuring him seriously, an attempt that fortunately was frustrated.
We are not told if the king was present upon this occasion, but the principal racing men of the period undoubtedly were there. The king himself attended a meeting at Lincoln in the spring of 1617, where he lost very heavily.
Towards the end of this reign strong opposition to the increasing popularity of racing began to manifest itself among what we should to-day call the middle class, owing, so it was said, to the sport being vigorously denounced from pulpit and platform as a growing national evil, “one likely to imperil the whole country's prosperity.”
For some time the king strove to smother these denunciations, and he even partially succeeded in the attempt.
Yet in the end the people must have triumphed, for we read that James was still on the throne when some of the more popular of the flat-race meetings were tacitly allowed to be abandoned, while in 1620 the meeting which usually had been held at Thetford was directly suppressed by an order of the Privy Council.
Among the most important of the private riding matches, as they were then called, that took place in James's reign was the one arranged at Newmarket between Lord Haddington and Lord Sheffield.
Run at Huntingdon towards the end of the year 1607, the race was extremely exciting from start to finish. Both men appear to have been good riders, and the stake run for is said to have amounted to a considerable sum.
Yet the various accounts of the match give versions which differ widely as to what happened, and while one writer declares that Lord Haddington won with difficulty, another contradicts him by maintaining that the stake was awarded to Lord Sheffield.