The road from Reigate to Crawley, one of the straightest and levellest in the south country, was once the scene of a remarkable horse-race. The beginning of it was a discussion at a shooting party in the autumn of 1890 between Lord Lonsdale and Lord Shrewsbury on the pace of trotting and galloping horses. Lord Lonsdale backed himself to drive galloping horses for twenty miles, single, pair, four-in-hand and riding postillion, inside an hour. Lord Shrewsbury wagered against him, but there were difficulties about weather and the date--March 11, 1891--and eventually Lord Shrewsbury withdrew from the match and paid L100 forfeit. Lord Lonsdale then set himself the task alone, and his headquarters were at Reigate; he had fifteen horses in training, fifteen men and thirteen carriages, and the cost of keeping them at Reigate came to L150 a day. The course, a stretch of five miles of road, over which horses were to be driven in the four different styles was measured from Kennersley Manor, three miles south of the White Hart, nearly into Crawley. Snow fell on the tenth, the day before the match; Lord Lonsdale borrowed a snow plough and sent it over the road. At noon on the day of the race the horses and carriages were taken to the course; at five and twenty minutes to one Lord Lonsdale drove up in a pair-horse brougham; at one o'clock to the second he trotted his single horse, War Paint, to the starting-point, and War Paint bounded down the road. War Paint took 13 minutes 39-1/5 seconds over the five miles; it would have been twenty seconds less, but a brewer's dray had blocked the road. The pair-horse was waiting with Blue and Yellow, two Americans, in it; the change took three seconds, and Blue and Yellow galloped back to the start in 12 minutes 51-2/5 seconds. It was the turn for the coach, and it took 36-3/5 seconds to change across; a groom drove the team to the starting point, a yard before it Lord Lonsdale caught up the reins, and the four horses swept up the rise to Crawley again. Fifteen minutes and nine seconds and two-fifths the four horses took; the leaders were Silk and Everton King, the wheelers Conservative and Whitechapel, and they left their driver something over seventeen minutes to ride postillion back. It took 40-2/5 seconds to change from coat and hat for riding, and exactly at seventeen minutes to the hour Lord Lonsdale rode off on Draper, a chestnut, with a bay mare, Violetta, for the pair. Draper and Violetta went over the last five miles in 13 minutes 55-4/5 seconds, and in 56 minutes 55-4/5 seconds the twenty miles were covered. And so the great race ended.