Speed of the Horse.

Common report says that Flying Childers could run a mile in a minute, but there is no authentic record of this. He ran over the Round Course at Newmarket (three miles six furlongs and ninety-three yards) in six minutes and forty seconds; and the Beacon Course (four miles one furlong and 138 yards), in seven minutes and thirty seconds. In 1772, a mile was run by Firetail in one minute and four seconds. In October, 1741, at the Curragh Meeting in Ireland, Mr. Wilde engaged to ride 127 miles in nine hours. He performed it in six hours and 21 minutes. He employed ten horses, and, allowing for mounting and dismounting, and a moment for refreshment, he rode for six hours at the rate of 20 miles an hour. Mr. Thornhill, in 1745, exceeded this, for he rode from Stilton to London and back, and again to Stilton, being 213 miles, in 11 hours and 34 minutes, which is, after allowing the least possible time for changing horses, 20 miles an hour for 11 hours, and on the turnpike road and uneven ground. Mr. Shaftoe, in 1762, with ten horses, and five of them ridden twice, accomplished fifty miles and a quarter in one hour and forty-nine minutes. In 1763 Mr. Shaftoe won a more extraordinary match. He was to procure a person to ride one hundred miles a day, on any one horse each day, for twenty-nine days together, and to have any number of horses not exceeding twenty-nine. He accomplished it on fourteen horses; and, on one day, he rode one hundred and sixty miles, on account of the tiring of his first horse. Mr. Hull's Quibbler, however, afforded the most extraordinary instance on record of the stoutness as well as speed of the racehorse. In December, 1786, he ran twenty three miles, round the flat at Newmarket, in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds.