The writer of these lines, as all readers of history know, was the secretary of Archbishop A'Becket, and was himself a monk of Canterbury, and Drayton the poet bears testimony to the accuracy of what he has stated. The word "jockey," as used in the above extract, may denote a professional horseman; but at the time in question the word was applied generally to dealers in horses, and related, as has often been argued, more to bargaining and pricing than to riding. In the succeeding reign horse-racing as a pastime--that is organised racing--appears to have been established, grafted most likely on the practice already referred to of "showing off," by a few runs, the paces of such animals as were exposed for sale. When the pastime was first established, racing took place only at fixed periods, generally during the Easter and Whitsuntide holidays. The racing of those days is alluded to in an old metrical romance: In Somertyme at Whitsuntyde, When Knights most on horseback ryde; A Cours let they make on a day, Steeds and Palfraye, for to essaye Which horse that best may run. Three miles the Cours was then, Who that might ryde him shoulde Have forty pounds of redy golde. Records of racing and notices of the horse as a courser begin after this time to be frequent. In the latter part of the reign of Edward II., and in the beginning of the reign of his successor, prices are occasionally quoted for that class of horse. Taking now a leap to the reign of "bluff King Hal," the belief that horse-racing, as a pastime, had by that time taken root, and was gradually deepening its hold on the affections of the English people, can hardly be resisted. In a document relating to the Royal household, mention is made of His Majesty's horses as follows: "Coursers, young horses, hunting geldings, hobies, Barbary horses, stallions, geldings, mail bottles, pack, Berage Robe, and stalking horses." In this list is comprised the elements of the modern stud.