434 Memoirs of Sir Charles Bunbury, 



that of a!{fot'ding protection to the beloved 

 animal, and of teaching, both by precept 

 and unvarying example, the duties of jus- 

 tice, mercy, and kiudness towards him. 

 One of the earliest and most illustrious ex- 

 amples was that of the Emperor Constau- 

 tine, who issued edicts to the above effect. 

 There are numbers who take to the turf and 

 the betting profession, without an atom 

 either of knowledge of the horse, or affec- 

 tion for him. Wiih Sir Charles Bunbury it 

 was not so. A natural kindness of heart 

 first taught him to treat the horse with 

 mildness, and long experience ensured to 

 him that great skill and judgment in the 

 auimaPs powers of which he was highly am- 

 bitious. Before his time, and indeed too 

 much since, the practice of horse-racing 

 has been disgraced and rendered loathsome, 

 by the most abominable and needless 

 rigours, tricks, and barbarities. He had, 

 many years ago, reduced his meditated 

 humanity in that respect to a system, which 

 he did the present writer the honour to 

 communicate to him. His improvements 

 have been gradually and slowly making 

 their way at Newmarket, and of late years 

 in a still greater degree among the trainers 

 of the North. 



The Bunbury method of training the 

 race-horse is far more lenient and less in- 

 jurious to the animal powers, than that of 

 former days ; in consequence, more con- 

 tributory to the perfection of his speed and 

 the prolongation of his utility. It is a phi- 

 losophical and useful, as well as merciful 

 system. It primarily consists in reducing 

 the old enormous weight of the body 

 clothes, and curtailing the lengths of the 

 sweats and gallops, which have generally 

 the effect of injuring the tendons and weak- 

 ening the joints of the animal in a far 

 greater degree than the race itself. Sir 

 Charles even carried his ideas of leniency 

 to his favourite so far, and successfully, as 

 to use all his influence to shorten the dis- 

 tance of race-courses, to render two miles 

 instead of four, and the shorter races more 

 customary and frequent — alleging that 

 short distances are not only less injurious 

 ?nd distressing to the hors^, but really 

 more productive of gratification to the spec- 

 tators, who during those, might generally 

 command a full view of the sport, from 

 the start to the ending-post ; whereas in a 

 long, or four-mile course, like the B. C. at 

 Newmarket, nothing is seen by the sports- 

 men assembled but the run-in, of probably 

 less than half a minute's continuance. The 

 far greater part is a race to the jockies 

 alone. His most important reform remains 

 to be told. He forbade to his jockies and 

 stable-attendants all acts of rigour or ill- 

 nature towards the horses, on pain of in- 

 stant dismissal. The favourable result 

 was, the animals were geiltle as lambs, and 



[June I, 



docile in proportion. His directions were 

 still further carried to the utmost verge of 

 kindness and tenderness. His argument 

 was, that by ill-treatment and cruelty, 

 horses are rendered vicious and restive, 

 and that from the opposite may be assured 

 their docility and obedience. Thence he 

 strictly inhibited to his jockies even the 

 use of the whip in a race, any otherwise 

 than to make a flourish with it, allowing 

 only, in case of a hard contest, the mode- 

 rate and gentle use of the spur, by which 

 alone a horse may be incited to bis utmost 

 exertion. Nothing (bull-baiting and the 

 brood grin of heartless idiots excepted) can 

 be more abominable, contemptible, and dis- 

 graceful to the sporting character of this 

 country, than the whipping, spurring, and 

 cutting-up alive, even to the entrails, the 

 generous and noble race-horse, on bis run- 

 in to the ending-post ; nothing more wrong- 

 headed and absurd, since it is almost or alto- 

 gether a certain consequence, (and this is 

 given on practical experience in the writer) 

 that every foul or unnecessary stroke with 

 the whip or spur, will have the effect of re- 

 ducing the compass of the horse's stride, 

 and of palsying the m<»nentum of hid<)tx- 

 ertions. ::' 



Sir Charles Bunbury was the best of mas- 

 ters, and his service might 'oe truly styled 

 an inheritance. As a prefatory remark to 

 the following cursory account of this an- 

 cient and worthy sportsman's racing career, 

 it may be safely averred that the British 

 turf is a great national concern, productive 

 of incalculable benetils in raising a breed 

 of horses for all the purposes of use and en- 

 joyment,superior tothose ofall othernations 

 and eagerly sought by all. As an amuse- 

 ment or sport, the course is a relic of 

 classical antiquity ; in modern times, pecu- 

 liar to this country, where however, al- 

 though it has been during some centaries 

 pursued with enthusiasm, by many of onr 

 nobles and superior families, and by some 

 persons as a profession, its votaries have 

 always been a small minority of the popu- 

 lation. The concomitant games of chance 

 seem essential and unavoidable, and the 

 inherent gambling mania would be satiated 

 independently of horse-coursing. That cru- 

 elty and unfair usage of the animal its sub- 

 ject, have no necessary connection with 

 racing, Bunbury, in a long life of constant 

 practice, furnished an illustrious example. 

 Sir Charles was taken into training for 

 the turf, in his twenty-third year, that is 

 to say in 1763, by a very able master, his 

 friend William Crofts, esq. of West Har- 

 ling, Norfolk, the proprietor of Brilliant, 

 a high famed and beautiful little horse, ex- 

 actly of the colour of a new guinea. A 

 son of Brilliant, the bay horse Bellario, was 

 Bubsequeutly purchased of Mr. Crofts by 

 the baronet, and he proved a successful 

 ' racer. 



