CAMBRIDGESHIRE/SUFFOLK, Newmarket, Wyon’s Penny, 1799, two racehorses passing winning post, rev. legend, craven meeting, etc, edge plain, 22.82g/12h (W 1547; D & W 323/19; DH Cambridgeshire 11). No die flaw on reverse, some light scuffing on obverse, otherwise almost extremely fine with a hint of original colour, rare
£600-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Racing Tickets and Passes, the Property of a North Country Collector.

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Provenance: Baldwin FPL 1995 (352).

The race commemorated on this token was that staged on the Beacon course at Newmarket on Monday 25 March 1799, between Durham landowner Sir Harry Vane-Tempest's Hambletonian (1792-1818), ridden by Frank Buckle, and the horse-breeder Joseph Cookson's Diamond (1792-1819), with Dennis Fitzpatrick up. The match was for 3,000 guineas a side, half of which was forfeit; Sir Harry’s horse, the 5-4 favourite, took victory by 'half a neck', even though contemporary reports remarked that he was thought the better horse overall. A painting by George Stubbs, executed in 1800 and now at Mount Stewart, Belfast, may have been the instigation for this piece. Recent published research contradicts some of the data shown on the token, in respect of the date of the contest and the actual time it took to complete the race, which was eight and a half minutes.

Newmarket, widely regarded as the headquarters of British horse racing because of the number of people locally employed in the sport, first witnessed horse racing during the reign of James I. Charles II and his brother James were regular attenders and the former passed a law in 1666 by which the Town Plate must be run annually ‘for ever’ and this year witnessed the 350th anniversary of that event, the country’s longest continually-run horse race. The right of the Jockey Club to warn persons off Newmarket Heath was established in 1827 when the Club was able to produce evidence to show that it had proprietorship of the Heath as tenants of the Duke of Portland since 1753