1773 THE DUKES 29 



caster), the celebrated Basto, the distinguished Plasto, 

 and a whole galaxy of winners, to say nothing of 

 ' Devonshire Arabians ' either imported by the family 

 or purchased by them after importation. It was 

 apparently the third Duke whose Dimple is the first 

 winner of the Newmarket Challenge Whip mentioned 

 in the records (about 1722-4). The fourth Duke 

 appears among those members of the Jockey Club who 

 adopted more or less permanent ' colours ' in 1762 (as 

 published in the ' Calendars '), and he chose the 'straw,' 

 which the present Lord Hartington has ' illustrated ' 

 by means of Morion and others before him, but not, 

 as some of us may think, with such success as may be 

 considered his hereditary as well as personal due. 

 The fourth Duke was Master of the Horse, and won, 

 as Marquess of Hartington (or Lord Cavendish), a 

 Jockey Club Plate with Antelope (formerly Sir M. 

 Wyvill's) in 1754, and, as Duke of Devonshire, another 

 with Atlas in 1759. 



The fifth Duke had the reputation of being a 

 scholar rather than a 'jockey,' but his membership 

 of the Jockey Club is proved (to mention nothing 

 else) by his running Dromo for a Jockey Club Plate 

 in 1773. His wife, the ' beautiful Georgiana ' (to 

 whom Coleridge addressed the once well-known ode, 

 and who died in 1806), was herself, it is interest- 

 ing to note, among the horse-racers ; for she ran her 

 horse Le Beau, at Newmarket in 1786, against her 

 sister, Lady Duncannon (afterwards Countess of Bess- 



