UPON TRAINERS. 215 



which altogether required eight pairs of post-horses to drag 

 them, at a cost of two shilhngs per mile for each pair, includ- 

 ing ostler, post-boy, and turnpike gates. Not a single race- 

 horse would Lord George ever allow to travel on the hoof 

 when vans had been introduced. Even his yearlings were 

 conveyed in vans from Danebury to Goodwood ; and Kent, who 

 superintended their removal himself, had to travel backwards 

 and forwards day after day with three double vans, starting 

 from Goodwood at 4 a.m., and getting back there at 8 p.m. 

 ■ — the distance there and back being 94 miles — each day. 



Gaper (wrote Kent recently to a friend) was broken as a 

 yearling by me. He ran three times as a two-year-old in 1842, 

 winning a small stake at Goodwood, and the Criterion at New- 

 market, in which he beat Cotherstone. He ran fifteen times as a 

 three-year-old, and won seven races. Like his sire, Bay Middleton, 

 he was a very high-couraged horse, and did not like to be checked 

 or harshly ridden, to which Sam Rogers more than once subjected 

 him. In his trials at home he was a good horse, Abdale being upon 

 him, without whip or spur. About a week before the Derby he beat 

 Discord, an old horse, a long way at 7 lbs. over a mile and a 

 quarter, and with four others in the trial. Discord then went to 

 Epsom and won the Craven Stakes, beating Alice Hawthorne and 

 Knight of the Whistle. As regards my personal labours and 

 fatigues, I have long felt certain that I could not have endured 

 them, but for great abstemiousness and non-smoking. When 

 Princess Alice won the Champagne at Doncaster, Lord George 

 gave instructions that, in addition to supplying champagne at the 

 dinner held that evening at the Turf Tavern (then kept by Mrs. 

 Bowe, the widow of Mr. Bowe, in whose name his Lordship's 

 horses used once to run), an unlimited amount of wine of all kinds 

 was to be distributed. I remember that my bill for the extra wine 

 and cigars consumed that evening was ']'^l. Again, when Miss 

 Elis won the Goodwood Stakes and Cup in 1845, Lord George 

 won 26,000/., and gave presents to everyone employed in his racing 

 establishment. All this was a great tax upon me, and at last my 

 health gave way, and I was obliged to rest for a time, but soon 

 recovered, and think I could go through the whole again as well 

 as ever. 



Such was the every-day life of a still active and evergreen 



