82 LORD GEORGE BENTINCK 



Curiously, about the same date Lord George was 

 credited, but I hope quite unfairly, with the invention 

 of a strangely-constructed bridle, having a long porch 

 reaching nearly to the orifice of the gullet, for the pur- 

 pose of making a horse cough when wearing it. This, in 

 combination with the stratagem above mentioned, must 

 have had a truly wonderful effect, and have embraced all 

 that was desirable, or that ingenuity could devise, to 

 reduce a healthy animal temporarily to the last stage of 

 the severest cold. I have been told that this instrument 

 in shape closely resembled the bridle known as Lord 

 George's, which is still in use, and is a good one for hard 

 pullers. In fact, it will stop any horse in the least 

 possible time, whether on the racecourse or anywhere 

 else. It was such a bridle that Lord George's hacks 

 generally wore, and sometimes his racehorses. As for 

 the original bridle, I am afraid that its use as well as 

 invention is lost to posterity, for even the maker's name 

 is unknown, so far as I have been able to discover. 



I cannot refrain from reciting here one instance of his 

 lordship's generosity in giving others a chance to take a 

 good bet. One day when Red Deer was favourite for the 

 St. Leger, whilst his train stopped for a few minutes 

 at the Rugby platform, Lord George fished out Mr. 

 William Scott, having possibly heard that the latter 

 Was in a complacent mood, or, probably, hoping to find 

 him so ; and after telling him how greatly Bed Deer 

 had improved, kindly laid him 7,000 to 2,000 against 

 the horse, ' just to save him the trouble of collecting it 

 ' in small sums,' as a facetious writer once put it. Now 

 Bed Deer, if he was not Lord George's own horse, be- 

 longed to the Duke of Richmond, over whose stable he 

 had, as is well known, absolute control. Bed Deer 

 started at seven to one, and was nowhere. In our day, 



