Espersykes

[Drone]

The hamlet of Espersykes (great name) lies between Malton and Pickering in North Yorkshire; today I was driven past the road-sign for the nth time and my chauffeur commented "did you know there was a racehorse called Espersykes" "no" I replied

Intrigued, I’ve been googling, and have discovered that Espersykes was foaled in 1775 and was seriously inbred to the Godolphin Arabian in the third and fourth removes

Other than that there seems to be little information; so does anyone know anything about Espersykes? e.g. owner, trainer, racing career, progeny

Thanks

[apracing]

Hi Drone,

The name rang a bell and a bit of checking confirmed I’d seen it in an old Racing Calendar, which (bizarrely) is available to view via Google Books here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lBUu … &q&f=false

I stumbled across this historic treasure trove a couple of months ago – there are dozens of Calendars from the 18th and 19th century on there.

This one is 1793, so I suspect the Espersykes that crops up here is a son of the one you’re asking about. Just do a search and you’ll find several references to a 6-y-old called Espersykes, owned by Lord Clermont.

[Drone]

A fascinating resource indeed, and how nice to see that the ‘long s’ was still in use – Efperfykes. It was a sad day when the Jockey Club finally entered the 19th century in the 1960s and introduced that nasty little s

Lord Clermont was presumably the Viscount Clermont of the County of Louth in Ireland, so no apparent connection with Yorkshire there, though as you point out he owned Espersykes II

[Author]

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