FIRST IDEA OF VANS. 61 



Cup at Cheltenham, his Lordship exercised his 

 active and ingenious mind in giving effect to an 

 idea that race-horses might be conveyed in a sort 

 of van which would preserve them from the risk 

 and fatigue, to say nothing of the delays, in- 

 separable from travelling on foot from place to 

 place. This idea he expounded to my father, 

 who thought there would not be much difficulty 

 in accomplishing it, as he remembered a horse 

 called Sovereign, belonging to Mr Terrett, having 

 been conveyed in a bullock-van from Worcester- 

 shire to Newmarket. As there was a similar van 

 upon the Goodwood estate, his Lordship inspected 

 it with my father, who was so convinced that the 

 principle could be adopted for the conveyance of 

 race-horses, that he at once used every means in 

 his power to give effect to his master's wishes. 

 My father judged that if a valuable horse could 

 be moved from the south to the north of Eng- 

 land so as to run well in the St Leger, the method 

 would at once be established and adopted. Hav- 

 ing Elis engaged in the St Leger, Lord George 

 thought it a good opportunity to make trial of 

 this plan. Accordingly he employed Mr Herring, 

 a coachbuilder in Long Acre, to construct a van 

 capable of holding two horses. Mr Herring was 

 kept in the dark as to the object with which the 

 van was being built, and few were allowed to 

 know of its construction. As it progressed, its 

 successful adaptation to the purpose for which 



