Whilst on horse-back, without allowing anything for changing of horses, he rode at the rate of twenty miles an hour for six hours. He was so little fatigued with this extraordinary performance, that he was at the Turf Club-house in Kildare the same evening.
The Right Honourable Thomas Conolly also rode for a wager of five hundred guineas on the Curragh. He was allowed two hours to ride forty miles with any ten hunters of his own. He with ease rode forty-two miles in an hour and forty-four minutes on eight hunters.
At this time much money was wagered both in Ireland and England upon the leaping powers of the horse, and occasionally the methods employed were none too honourable.
A young sportsman, for instance, having boasted of the powers of a recently purchased hunter which he offered to back at jumping against any horse in the world, a friend ridiculed the idea, and said he had a blind hunter that should leap over what the other would not. A wager to no inconsiderable amount was the consequence, and day and place appointed. The time having arrived, both parties appeared on the ground with their nags; when laying down a straw at some distance, the friend put his horse forward, and at the word "over" the blind hunter made a famous leap; while neither whip nor spur could induce the other to rise at all.
A very sporting bet was decided in the most fashionable part of London in 1792. On the 24th of February in that year was accomplished the feat of leaping over the high wall of Hyde Park from Park Lane. A bet of five hundred guineas was reported to have been laid between a Royal personage and Mr. Bingham, that the latter's Irish-bred brown mare should leap over the wall of Hyde Park, opposite Grosvenor Place, which wall was six feet and a half high on the inside, and eight on the out. Mr. Bingham having sold his mare to Mr. Jones, the bet, of course, became void. Mr. Jones offered bets to any amount that the mare should do it, but his offers were not accepted. Mr. Bingham, to show the possibility of its being done, led his beautiful bay horse, Deserter, to the same place, who performed this standing leap twice without any difficulty, except that, in returning, his hind feet brushed the bricks off the top of the wall. As the height from which he was to descend into the road was so considerable, he was received on a bed of long dung. The Duke of York, Prince William of Gloucester, the Earl of Derby, and a number of the nobility joined the vast concourse of impatient spectators, who were pretty well tired out before the jumping began.
Another remarkable feat was the leap over a dinner-table with dishes, decanters, and lighted candelabra, performed by Mr. Manning, a sporting farmer, on a barebacked steed in the Rochester Room at the White Hart Inn, at Aylesbury, during the steeplechases in 1851.
Wagers entailing considerable risk and endurance were popular in the past. Two gentlemen at a coffee-house near Temple Bar once made an extraordinary bet of this nature. One of them was to jump into seven feet of water, with his clothes on, and to entirely undress himself in the water, which he did within the appointed time.
The present writer, when an undergraduate at Cambridge, witnessed a somewhat similar exploit performed in the Cam on a particularly cold winter's day.
On this occasion, however, the undergraduate, a man of herculean frame, who had wagered that he would undress in the water, was allowed to cancel his bet after he had discarded everything but one sock. As he appeared to be much exhausted, all bets were declared off by mutual consent. The layer of the wager was in a terrible state on leaving the water, but entirely recovered the next day.