The descriptions we have of the race horses he bred are somewhat contradictory and must therefore be received with caution. That he imported many fine mares from Barbary is certain, also it is certain that at regular intervals he sent abroad competent judges with instructions that they should secure for him, regardless of cost, the best animals obtainable.
From among the best of these were selected the stud that came afterwards to be known as the Royal Mares, a designation they bear in the stud-book to this day. The dam of the famous Dodsworth—one of the earliest of all our thoroughbreds—was included in the royal stud, and its pedigree has been authenticated beyond dispute.
Emphatically Charles II. did more to encourage horse racing than any other monarch after Henry VIII. had done, and by comparison he did much more than Henry VIII. by any possibility could have done, the very best racing in Henry's reign being quite inferior to the sport shown in the reign of the Merry Monarch.
And by every means that lay in his power the Duke of Newcastle abetted Charles. The duke himself, soon after the Restoration, sank a considerable sum in the purchase of fresh racing stock to add to his stud, already a large one. And thus the foundation of the thoroughbred stud of modern times may be said to date practically from about the latter part of the seventeenth century.
Thomas Shadwell, the famous playwright, who, born in 1642, lived for half-a-century, alludes in several of his dramatic works to “the great wave of passionate devotion to vices of various kinds” that seemed to roll gradually over the whole of England during the reign of Charles II., while special reference is made to the all-absorbing interest taken in the Turf while the Merry Monarch was on the throne.
Speaking of Newmarket in particular, “there a man is never idle,” he makes one of his characters cynically observe, “for we make visits to horses, and talk with grooms, riders and cock-keepers, and saunter in the Heath all the fore-noon.
“Then we dine, and never talk a word but of dogs, cocks and horses.
“Then we saunter into the Heath again, then to a cock-match, then to a play in a barn, then to supper, and never speak a word but of dogs, cocks and horses again.
“Then to the Groom Porters, where you may play all night. Oh, 'tis a heavenly life! We are never, never tired!”
Seeing what keen and thorough sportsmen the Irish are, as a body, one is rather surprised to learn that until towards the close of the seventeenth century horse racing was almost unknown in Ireland. No sooner had it been introduced, however, than it began to develop with great rapidity, so that within a few years it spread into many parts of the island and we hear of race meeting after race meeting being organised.