262 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



of Woodpecker, with whom he won the Craven Stakes three times. He was one of 

 the earliest members of the Jockey Club, for he won one of its Plates in 1753 at 

 what must be almost its first appearance at Newmarket. In Holcroft's memoirs 

 we get some idea of the way in which his bold and extensive operations im- 

 pressed the untutored onlooker. Unfortunately the dramatist thought he could go 

 and do likewise, with the result that he lost half his year's wages in a week. It 

 takes a deal of learning before you can safely " stand ten thousand pounds to 

 nothing," as he reports Dick Vernon did on a celebrated occasion. The future 



By permission of Sir Walter Gilbey. 



" Shark " (1771) with Price, his trainer. 

 By " Marske " out of a " Snap " mare. 



playwright also saw the match run in 1759 (B. C. 500 guineas a side) between 

 Mr. Jenison Shafto's Elephant and Mr. Vernon's Forester, in which Forester savaged 

 his opponent, and to the excited imagination of the spectator seemed actually 

 to hold him back by gripping his underjaw. The episode suggests one of those 

 terrible little coloured drawings by Alken, in which the red nostrils and starting eyes 

 of a horse making its last effort are portrayed with a greater eye for dramatic effect 

 than truth. The preservation of Mr. Vernon's name in the purlieus of Bloomsbury 

 Square recalls the fact that he sat for Tavistock, Bedford, and Okehampton, in the 



