22 FAMOUS RACINGr MEN. 



comfortably lounged over that meal would return to the course 

 to see the finish of the day's sports. Such were the surround- 

 ings of Epsom races when Diomed won the first Derby and 

 " made himself an everlasting name." It is sad, however, to relate 

 that the first Derby winner did not maintain an unsullied reputa- 

 tion, for in the following year he started for the principal stakes 

 at Nottingham, with long odds betted upon him, and was beaten 

 by Lord G-rosvenor's Fortitude, a horse of far inferior antecedents. 

 Some rather nasty remarks were made by the losers about Diomed's 

 running on this occasion, and Sir Charles had a dispute with 

 his jockey — not Arnull — on the subject, which ended in the man's 

 being discharged from the baronet's service. Later in the same year, 

 however, Diomed was beaten at Newmarket by Colonel O'Kelly's 

 Boudrow, who had run second to him in the Derby, and Sir 

 Charles in disgust refused to let the horse start in 1782. In the 

 following year Diomed started seven times, but was only once 

 returned a winner, and falling lame at the close of the season was 

 put out of training and sent to the stud, a circumstance which was 

 destined to prove advantageous to the turf in two hemispheres. 

 Diomed commenced his career as a stallion at Uppart, near Chi- 

 chester, in 1785, at a fee of 5 guineas, and was subsequently removed 

 to Barton Hall, where his fee was doubled. He was sire of many 

 illustrious colts and fillies, but we need only mention Young 

 Giantess, of whom more anon. In 1798, when he was two-and-twenty 

 years of age, Diomed was sold for 50 guineas to go to America, 

 though why his owner should have parted with him for so ludicrously 

 small a price it is impossible to conjecture. At any rate there were 

 sportsmen in America who valued the horse at his true worth, for 

 shortly after landing he was sold for 1,000 guineas, and is said to have 

 lived to the age of forty, during all that period being visited by the 

 best mares in the country. His progeny were numerous, and the 

 first Derby winner may with truth be said to be the Father of the 

 American Turf, for there is scarcely a famous trotter or racer to be 

 found anywhere, from Florida to Maine, that does not trace its 

 descent back to Sir Charles Bunbury's famous colt. From his loins 

 sprang the mighty Lexington, whose descendant, Foxhall, won 

 last year (1881) for his American owner the Grand Prix de Paris, 

 the Cesarewitch, and the Cambridgeshire. With the minor successes 

 of Sir Charles, and they were numerous, we have no space to deal. 

 But we must pause to mention that he was, at a very early age, 

 elected a member of the Jockey Club, and soon became one of the 

 stewards, in which capacity he had to conduct the investigation 

 into the Escape business, and was one of the bitterest critics of both 

 the Prince of Wales and his jockey, the elder Sam Chifney. The 

 latter, indeed, distinctly asserts in his curious work Genius 

 Genuine that the disturbance was entirely of Sir Charles's making, 

 and certainly it was Bunbury who told the Prince bluntly that 

 if Chifney were suffered to ride His Eoyal Highness's horses, no 



