THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 233 



eclipsed. For he won the first Derby with Diomed, he was the first to win both 

 Derby and Oaks with the same mare, Eleanor, and he was the first to win both 

 Derby and Two Thousand with the same horse, Smolensko. A great friend of 

 the Duke of York, Sir Charles Bunbury was first taught the mysteries of the Turf 

 by Mr. Crofts of Norfolk (owner of Brilliant by Old Crab}. The first good horse 

 he: owned was Bellario, who always ran second to Eclipse. In breeding he was not 

 very successful, except in the case of Young Giantess, from whom and Whiskey was 

 descended Eleanor. With Mr. Ralph Dutton and the polite Thomas Panton he 

 had, as Steward, the disagreeable duty of taking action in the Escape incident, of 

 which I shall have more to say later ; but the delicacy of the proceedings may be 

 imagined from the fact that Sir Charles's famous Eleanor was once beaten by a 

 common plater at Huntington (10 to i on "Eleanor"}, and next week she beat a 

 first-rate horse at Egham (10 to i on " Bobadil"}. I have hitherto failed to 

 discover any greater proof than this against the Prince of Wales. That Sir 

 Charles did not introduce two- year- old racing will be clear to every reader 

 of my First Volume. But he certainly countenanced it ; and though the course 

 called after him at Newmarket was never associated either with that, or with 

 the infinitely worse yearling races. Sir Charles cannot be excused (any more 

 than his contemporary members of the Jockey Club) the blame of allowing 

 yearlings to run at Newmarket. His well-known gentleness to all horses in training 

 may possibly be taken as the explanation of the short-distance races he also 

 favoured ; but, on the whole, it is difficult to believe that his influence and his 

 undoubted integrity were not exercised in a generally beneficial manner upon a sport 

 which he fostered not only directly in England but, through the Lexington strain of 

 Diomed, in America as well. 



But besides the undying reputation of having been the first to win the Derby, he 

 enjoyed a distinction which, to be sure, is one of the greatest that can attach to any 

 man, on the Turf or not : he married the most beautiful woman in England. Sir 

 Joshua's portrait of Lady Sarah Bunbury is the portrait of a woman not only extra- 

 ordinarily beautiful, but possessed of spirit and character. She was the youngest 

 daughter of the second Duke of Richmond, and sister of the lady who eloped with 

 Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland, and consequently the aunt of Charles, though 

 about his age, as may be seen in the interesting group I have reproduced which 

 shows them both at Holland House with Lady Susan Fox-Strangways. The best- 

 known circumstance of her life is that George the Third wanted to marry her, but 

 VOL. II. I I 



