Luttrell records a somewhat singular match against time: '14 April 1709. Some days since, a baker at Clerkenwell Green, laid with a Vintner there, a wager of 400 guineas against 16 Guineas, that his horse could not run from Shoreditch Church to Ware and back again (being 40 miles) in 2 hours and 36 minutes, which race was last Tuesday, and performed in 2 hours and 28 minutes, but the horse since dead.' The first mention, in this reign, of Epsom Races, as far as I can find, is in the _London Gazette_ April and May 26/3, 1703, when three small plates were to be run for, of 30_l._, 10_l._, and 5_l._ value. On May 25, 1704, there was only one to be competed for, and that of 20_l._ They had very early 'Epsom Spring Meetings'; for, in the _Daily Courant_, February 15, 1709, it says: 'On Epsom Downes in Surrey, on the first Monday after the Frost, a Plate of 20_l._ will be run for,' etc. Races for stakes of little value were common all over the country, and were deemed of sufficient importance to be advertised in the London papers. Take a few haphazard: Nottingham, Kerfall, Boston, Winchester, Croydon, Coventry, Quainton, Horsham, Woodstock, Mansfield; nay, there was even a 'Jockey Field betwixt Bedford Row and Gray's Inn, having a full Prospect of Hampstead and Highgate.' What a vast difference there was between those old racecourses and ours! No grand stands, no howling ring, no carriages, no ladies; not even a special dress for the jockeys. According to a nearly contemporary print, there were very few spectators even--and but a sorry booth, or so, for the sale of liquor.