242 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



in wi 



" Thou first of our orators, first of our wits, 

 Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits, 

 With knowledge so vast and with judgment so strong 

 No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong ; 

 With passions so potent and fancies so bright 

 No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right." 



Fox went to Newmarket with as great a zeal as he went everywhere. " When 

 his horse ran he was all eagerness and anxiety. He placed himself where the animal 

 was to make a push, or where the race was to be most strongly contested. From 

 this spot he eyed the horses advancing with the most immovable look ; he breathed 

 quicker as they accelerated their pace ; and when they came opposite to him he rode 

 vith them at full speed, whipping, spurring, and blowing, as if he would have 



infused his whole soul 

 into his favourite 

 racer. But when the 

 race was over, whether 

 he won or lost seemed 

 to be a matter of per- 

 fect indifference to 

 him, and he immedi- 

 ately directed his con- 

 versation to the next 

 race, whether he had 

 a horse to run or not." 

 He was, of course, a 

 member of the Jockey 

 Club, and with another member, Lord Foley, he owned Pyrrhns and Trentham, 

 both fine horses. Pyrrhns (1767) was a brown son of Sprightly out of 

 a daughter of Snip, won 10,400 guineas in stakes and matches, and was 

 the best of his year. His most famous match was against Mambrino 

 (5 years) at Newmarket First Spring Meeting, 1774, 8st, B. C. (cross and jostle), 

 for two thousand guineas, which he won by half a neck after his rider had " jockied 

 the rider of Mambrino and drove him a considerable way out of the course," within 

 half a distance of the finish. Trentham (1766) was a bay son of Lord Gower's 

 Sweepstakes out of Miss Sot////, and won two Jockey Club Plates. With Pyrrhns in 

 1773 he was engaged in a match by the terms of which both horses were backed to 



Mr. Charles Ogilby's "Trentham.'" 



