Introduction 



either capacity he is to respect himself or be respected by his 

 friends or by the public. 



My greatest happiness is to remember that although my 

 dear husband enjoyed to the full the pleasures of sport, he never 

 for one moment dreamt of shirking the many duties, arduous 

 often though they were, that his position in the sporting world 

 involved. 



For instance, he would rarely refuse to judge at any horse 

 show to which he was invited, unless it were an absolute im- 

 possibility for him to be present ; neither would he regard any 

 trouble too great to perform his judicial duties at such show in 

 the most thorough manner possible. 



And yet, to his great regret, I well know that he has been 

 obliged to refuse hundreds of invitations to judge at horse shows, 

 from sheer lack of the necessary time to undertake the work 

 involved. To prove how keen he was to see and give his 

 verdict upon the very best specimens of horseflesh, I may say 

 that he never could allow himself to neglect the great Dublin 

 Horse Show, until later years, when he felt the fatigue was too 

 great. 



Although my husband has judged at hundreds of horse shows, 

 in fact, all the principal shows of Great Britain, I have never 

 known him give a wrong verdict on any animal. In one or two 

 cases where his award has been challenged, I have known the 

 man come to him afterwards and tell him frankly that his judg 

 ment, then doubted by him, had been proved right by the 

 subsequent facts of the case. 



As to his powers as a practical huntsman, I have the best 

 right to speak, for after our marriage in 1881, during my son's 

 (the present Earl of Yarborough) minority, he hunted the 

 famous Brocklesby dog pack for four seasons, from 1882 to 

 1886. 



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