60 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



market in one minute four seconds and a half at the 

 First Spring Meeting of 1773 ; and he owned the 

 Orford Barb mare (dam of Piper, by Captain ; Hough- 

 ton, by Squirrel; Spitfire, by Eclipse), &c. All this 

 looks like a benefactor of the Turf; but the Earl seems 

 to have been a confirmed and reckless gambler, and 

 altogether such a member of the Jockey Club as the 

 Club and the Turf are better without. 



Lord [Upper] Ossory is John Fitzpatrick, second 

 and last Earl, one of the subscribers in 1768 to the 

 Jockey Club Challenge Cup, which he won in 1772 

 with Circe (by Matchem), and in 1777 with Dorimant 

 (by Otho), bred by himself, and one of the best horses 

 ever foaled. He is the Lord Ossory of whom David 

 Hume spoke so highly and prophesied such good 

 things (a prophecy which lacked complete fulfilment) ; 

 and he was the ' Proculeian ' brother of the ' Admir- 

 able Crichton ' Colonel Fitzpatrick, and the husband 

 (as already remarked) of the divorced Duchess of 

 Grafton. He was noticeably successful in his career 

 upon the Turf, his retirement from which was attri- 

 buted (even by so scurrilous a writer as Mr. Pigott, 

 author of * The Jockey Club ') to his disgust at the 

 people and the practices encountered upon it. He 

 bred and owned and ran a number of good horses, 

 many of them sons and daughters of the celebrated 

 Otho (purchased by him from Mr. ' Jockey ' Vernon, 

 as Horace Walpole calls him). Among them may be 

 mentioned Comus (a runner in France, and one of 



