Lord Palmerston's Racixg. 87 



it incapacitates us for study and application of every kind, makes us irritable and nervous ; 

 all our cheerfulness depends on the uncertain event of our nightly occupations." 



The published diary closes in 1S37, the diarist died in 1S65, living the same life to 

 the last. 



LORD PALMERSTON'S RACING. 



Lord Palmerston followed racing nearly all his life, but in quite a different spirit to Mr. 

 Greville. "He commenced in his own county in 1815 at Winchester, with a filly called 

 Mignonette.* He usually bred his animals himself, and named them after his farms. A 

 visit to his paddocks at Broadlands made his favourite Sunday walk. He seldom betted. 



In 1841 he won the Csesarewitch with Iliona, or rather John Day his trainer won, to 

 settle a rather long training-bill. At that time Lord Palmerston had invested so much 

 capital in improving his Welsh estate at Portmadoc (a very fine investment), that he was short 

 of ready mone}'. The victory of Iliona (daughter of Priam) led to a very lively discussion 

 on the pronunciation of her name, in which a racing poet, young Lord Maidstone (" John 

 Davis" in sporting literature), took an active part. 



In i860, Mainstone, before mentioned, was third in the betting for the Derby, but tenth 

 in the race. 



Lord Palmerston rode down to Epsom to see, to his great disappointment, Thormanby 

 win instead of Mainstone. Mr. Ashle)^ his biographer, says, " He was convinced that if his horse 

 had been fairly dealt with it would at any rate have made a good show in front. 



After the Mainstone disappointment he left his trainer "honest" John Day, and never again 

 owned an animal of any merit e.xcept Baldwin, having transferred his laorses to the stables 

 of Henry Goater at Littleton. 



In 1852 Lord Palmerston wrote to his brother at Naples, " I have only one horse in 

 training this year, he is three }'ears old, and I have won four races with him. He runs next 

 week for the Goodwood Cup, but I do not expect he will win, as he has to meet some very 

 good horses. He is by Venison, out of an Emilius mare I have had some time." 



THE DERBY AND OAKS. 



Historically the Derby and Oaks are more interesting to the dilettanti than any other races, 

 although of late years the interest in both seems to have declined, perhaps since the course has 

 been, to coin a word, so mobilised by the rival railways. 



The founder or name-giver to both was the twelfth Earl of Derby, the sportsman, as distin- 

 guished from his son the naturalist, his grandson the orator, and his great-grandson the statesman. 

 The earl had a pack of staghounds in Surrey, and a hunting-lodge called the Oaks, near Epsom. 

 General Burgoyne, unfortunate as a general in the American war, named one of his comedies 

 " The Oaks,'' and the same name was given to the race for three-year-old fillies at Epsom, 

 founded in 1779. In the following year the Derby was established for three-year-old colts and 

 fillies. In 1 80 1, the distance being then a mile, and the two races being run on two following 

 days, was won by Sir Charles Bunbury's Eleanor, a near descendant of Eclipse. The feat was 

 not repeated until 1857, when Blink Bonny won the Derby on a Wednesday and the Oaks 

 on a Friday — the distance having been for many }-ears previously increased to a miie and a half 



The founder Earl won the Derby once with his famous strong horse. Sir Peter, in 1787, so 

 called after Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's comedy The School for Scandal, which had recently 



* " Life of Lord Palmerston," by the Honoiualile Evelyn Ashley. 



