that, in all the services which they had
seene abroade in forrayne countreys, they never sawe a more comely
horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on more bravely in his
charge." The feats performed at the Battle of the Boyne, in 1690, by
the Irish horse-soldiers under Hamilton and Berwick were really
wonderful, and well-nigh turned disaster into victory on that
memorable day which decided the fate of nations as well as of
dynasties. And surely those were fleet and stout-hearted steeds that,
on August 12, 1690, carried Sarsfield and his chosen five hundred on
their dare-devil midnight ride from the Keeper Hills to Ballyneety,
where in the dim morning twilight they captured and destroyed William
of Orange's wonderful siege-train, and thereby heartened the
defenders of beleaguered Limerick.

Writing in 1809, Lawrence, in his _History and Delineation of the
Horse_, said: "From Ireland alone we import [into England] many
saddle horses, as many perhaps as 1,500 in a year; upwards in some
years. The Irish are the highest and steadiest leapers in the world.
Ireland has bred some good racers, and the generality of Irish horses
are, it appears, warmer tempered than our own; and, to use the
expression, sharper and more frigate-built."

It is not to be wondered at therefore if in such a country there
developed an ardent love of the noble sport of horse-racing. The
Curragh of Kildare, the long-standing headquarters of the Irish Turf
Club, was celebrated far back in the eighteenth century as the venue
of some great equine contests; and to this day, with its five
important fixtures every year, it still holds pride of place. There
are numerous other race-courses all over the country, from
Punchestown, Leopardstown, Phoenix Park, and Baldoyle in the east to
Galway in the west, and from The Maze in the north to rebel Cork in
the south. Horse-racing has not inappropriately been termed the
national pastime of Ireland. The number of people now giving their
attention to it has called for a notable increase in the number of
race-meetings, and stake-money is being put up on a more generous
scale than at any previous time in the history of the sport. For
example, the Irish Derby, run at the Curragh, was in 1914 worth
L2,500; and there are besides several stakes of L1,500 and L1,000.
The result of this forward policy is that increasing numbers come to
our race-meetings and that the turf has never been more popular than
it is today. Men