The Royal Mares: Imagining a Race (Part Two)

In the years since their first appearance in Cheny’s Racing Calendar of 1743, a group of celebrated yet vague beings, the Royal Mares, have from time to time attracted scholarly attention. Suggested to be the foundation mares of the Thoroughbred breed, they have subsequently been variously described as imported mares, as mares bred on the island of Britain, or a mixture of both. This paper explores the origins and progress of the story, around which mythology has accumulated, showing that there is a core of truth within the legend of imported mares, but that certain aspects of the historiography have been influenced by unreliable sources. The evidence for imported horses from the sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century is also examined in depth. Part I having examined the evidence up until the seizure of the horses (and other goods) of Charles I by the Parliamentarian commissioners, Part 2 commences in the aftermath of the regicide and events under Commonwealth rule.