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.
The Civil War practically ended the Jockey Club, though a feeble effort
was, for a time, made to carry it on. In 1900 the club properties and
the funds remaining in the club treasury were transferred as an
endowment to the Charleston Library Society. The proceeds from this
endowment add to the library's income by about two thousand dollars
annually. Other items of interest in connection with the Carolina Jockey
Club are that Episcopal Church conventions used to be held in Charleston
during the racing season, so that the attending parsons might take in
the races; that the Jockey Club Ball used to be the great ball of the
Charleston season, as the second St. Cecilia Ball became later and now
is; that the Charleston Club, a most delightful club, founded in 1852,
was an outgrowth of the Jockey Club; and that the Jockey Club's old
Sherries, Ports and Madeiras went to New York where they were purchased
by Delmonico--among them a Calderon de la Barca Madeira of 1848, and a
Peter Domecq Sherry of 1818.
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