Sir 1Ricbart> Sutton 41 1 



Captain Rous, afterwards " the Admiral " of immortal 

 Turf renown, on board the Pique frigate in the autumn 

 of 1835, when her captain performed a notable feat of 

 seamanship. The Pique, sailing from Quebec to England, 

 was driven north by contrary winds, and at last struck 

 upon a sunken reef off the coast of Labrador. For 

 eleven hours she remained fast on the rocks, and when at 

 last she floated off, it was with the loss of her keel and 

 forefoot, with a sprung mainmast and foremast, and, 

 what was worst of all, with a split rudder, scarcely a 

 quarter of it being left with which to steer the vessel. 

 In this fearfully crippled and dilapidated state Captain 

 Rous sailed his ship home, and reached S pithead in 

 twenty days, having run the 1,500 miles practically 

 without a rudder, and with a leak which made two feet 

 of water an hour ! 



But, like his skipper, young Richard Sutton loved the 

 land better than the sea, and preferred horses to ships. 

 He left the navy and entered the ist Life Guards. His 

 father had taken great pride in teaching him to ride 

 from the time he was six years old, and it must have 

 afforded Sir Richard keen pleasure to see the lad 

 develop into a first-rate horseman whom no fence could 

 stop. When he was twenty-one young Richard, as I 

 have said, took the hounds for two days a week for his 

 father in the Harborough country. On the Turf, too, 

 the colours of young Mr. Richard Sutton soon became 

 conspicuous. His victories in the Cambridgeshire with 

 Eurydice and Gardevisure, and his winning of the triple 

 crown with Lord Lyon are triumphs which have secured 

 him a place for ever on the bead-roll of famous Turfmen. 



