It is hard not to be irritated, even now, with the man who wrote that, especially in view of the fact that the two most interesting books to come out of the Carolinas of recent years are both by women: one of them being "Charleston--the Place and the People," by Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, a volume any chapter of which is worth the whole of Mr. Fraser's "Reminiscences," and the other "A Woman Rice-Planter," by "Patience Pennington," otherwise Mrs. John Julius Pringle (née Alston), who lives on her plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina.
The Carolina Jockey Club subscribed regularly to the support of the library, and now that that club is no more, its chief memorial may be said to rest there. This club was probably the first racing club in the country, and it is interesting to note that the old cement pillars from the Washington Race Course at Charleston were taken, when that course was abandoned, and set up at the Belmont Park course, near New York.
The turf history of Carolina began (according to the "South Carolina Gazette," dated February 1, 1734) in that same year, on the first Tuesday in February. One of the prizes was a saddle and bridle valued at £20. The riders were white men and the course was a green at Charleston Neck, near where the lower depot of the South Carolina Railroad now stands. In a "History of the Turf in South Carolina," which I found in the library, I learned that Mr. Daniel Ravenel bred fine horses on his plantation, Wantoot, in St. John's Parish, as early as 1761, that Mr. Frank Huger had imported an Arabian horse, and that many other gentlemen were importing British running horses, and were engaged in breeding. The book refers to the old York Course, later called the New Market Course. A long search did not, however, enable me to establish the date on which the Jockey Club was founded. It was clearly a going institution in 1792, for under date of Wednesday, February 15, in that year, I found the record of a race for the Jockey Club Purse--"four mile-heats--weight for age--won by Mr. Lynch's _Foxhunter_, after a well contested race of four heats, beating Mr. Sumter's _Ugly_, who won the first heat; Col. Washington's _Rosetta_, who won the second heat; Capt. Alston's _Betsy Baker_," etc., etc.