HIS EXHAUSTIVENESS.

211

was always instructed to travel in a first-class carriage, wherein I was frequently the only passenger.

I will now bring to a conclusion a chapter which might be indefinitely extended were I to include in it further specimens of the numerous letters which Lord George Bentinck wrote to my father and myself. It was his custom thoroughly and fundamentally to exhaust every subject and every detail upon which he touched; and as a further evidence of his untiring industry, I have now before me ever so many letters which he wrote upon a new system of ventilation which he desired to apply to some stables he was building at Goodwood. The perusal of these and other letters from his active pen recalls to my mind a few words spoken to me not long ago at Newmarket by my old friend the ex-racing Judge, Mr J. F. Clark, who was well acquainted with the Goodwood stable when in its prime. "I do not think,” exclaimed Mr Clark, "that any of the present lot of trainers in England would have long kept the situation of trainer to Lord George Bentinck, which would have worn any of them out in less than a year." To To prepare a hundred horses for their engagements is under any circumstances a laborious undertaking, but to do so fifty years ago was almost more than one man could long sustain. am quite sure that I should not be here now to

I

write these words if I had been called upon to look after such a stable of horses as I had under my charge at Goodwood; and to do so continuously for such an indefatigable and exacting master as Lord George Bentinck over a period of twenty years, instead of being in harness only from the end of 1841 to the August of 1848 inclusive.

CHAPTER X.

LATTER HALF OF THE RACING SEASON OF 1845.

THREE weeks after her severe exertions at Goodwood, Miss Elis ran at York for the Great Yorkshire Stakes, when Lord George Bentinck backed her again. She was beaten easily by Miss Sarah, a fine slashing filly, who had run third to the Duke of Richmond's Refraction for the Epsom Oaks, and was a daughter of Gladiator (at that time one of the best stallions in England), and of Major Yarburgh's famous mare Easter, by Brutandorf. The ground at York was excessively deep, a large portion of the course being under water. well remember that Mr Ramsay's Malcolm, a very powerful chestnut two-year-old colt, who won the Prince of Wales's Stakes on the first day, sank down into the mud as he was being saddled, and was quite unable to extricate himself until four or five strong men, whose assistance was invoked by Tom Dawson, his trainer, applied their shoulders to his ribs on both sides of his body, and fairly

I

lifted him out of the morass into which he was subsiding. Next morning, when I took my horses out to exercise, I encountered an old acquaintance on the farther side of the course under the wood, who thrust his walking-stick into the spongy soil up to its handle, remarking that "there was no bottom to be found." A shrewd, hard - headed Yorkshire labourer who was engaged in filling in the holes made by the horses' hoofs on the previous day, overheard my friend's remark and ejaculated, "You be mistaaken, zur; there be a parlous good bottom, nobut goe deep enouf doun to foind it."

Lord George was at all times very sceptical as to the soundness of excuses made for any of his horses which failed to win a particular race. He would not listen, therefore, to the assurances forced upon him by some of his friends, that Miss Elis had been beaten through the deepness of the ground. In addition to Miss Elis, Major Yarburgh's mare had also beaten Mr Bennett's Hope, who was second to Refraction for the Oaks. With his usual practical good sense, Lord George soon convinced himself that Miss Sarah would win the Doncaster St Leger, and immediately commenced to back her heavily for that race. Before long his Lordship's money made Miss Sarah first favourite for the St Leger, and when the flag fell she started with odds of 5 to 2 against her. In the race, for which she was trained by the late Charles Peck, she was beaten rather cleverly by Mr Watts's chestnut

colt, The Baron, who was bred in Ireland, and never came to this country until he put in an appearance at the Liverpool July Meeting, to run for the Liverpool St Leger. It was won by Mr St Paul's Mentor (a bad - tempered brute, who was said to have nearly killed Mat Dawson in his brother Tom's stables at Middleham), with Sir R. Bulkeley's Pantasa second and Lord Eglinton's Vaudeville third-four others not placed. As The Baron was being led off the course, John Scott, after inspecting him long and keenly, said to Mr Watts, his owner, "If you will send that horse to Whitewall without delay, he shall win the Doncaster Leger for you." Mr Watts took the great Yorkshire trainer at his word, the result being known to all. The Liverpool St Leger was run on July 18, and the Doncaster St Leger on September 17, so that John Scott had less than nine weeks in which to effect a transformation in the Irish horse. He certainly worked wonders by his skilful preparation of The Baron for the Doncaster St Leger and Cesarewitch; and it is noteworthy that after the latter race, The Baron, for whom Mr E. R. Clark, familiarly known as D'Orsay Clark," immediately gave £4000, never won again in the hands of another trainer.

When Lord George came, as usual, to the Turf Tavern to look at his horses in the evening after the St Leger, he remarked to me in a low voice, "I have had rather a bad day, as I backed Miss