THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 



26; 



Bedford interest, which may possibly account for the fact that he was blackballed for 

 " Old White's," though ten of the twelve members present assured him " on their 

 honour (sneers Horace Walpole) that they had put in white balls." In any case he 

 married the Countess- Dowager of Upper Ossory, and furnished another example of the 

 healthiness of the Turf by living till he was eighty-five, after winning the Jockey Club 

 Challenge Cup of 1768, with Marquis (by the Godolphin Arabian], and the Oaks, with 

 Annette by Eclipse, in 1787. The manuscript still exists of the wager he laid for 300 

 guineas at Windsor Lodge in June, 1762, with the Duke of Cumberland's Dapper, one 

 four-mile heat against his own horse, over Harleydon Course, at 8st. 7lb. Another 

 early member of the Club was Hugo Meynell, whose name is more indissolubly con- 

 nected with fox-hunting 

 than with the Turf, 

 though both probably 

 had a share in giving 

 prolonged vitality and 

 energy to the famous 

 Master of the Quorn. A 

 well-known northerner 

 of the same period was 

 Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 

 of Yorkshire, owner of 

 Magog, which he shared 

 with Mr. Stapleton, a 

 fellow-member. This 

 unlucky horse, who was 

 considered gigantic from being sixteen hands high, won a Jockey Club Plate, 

 and furnished the first authentic instance of nobbling, for he was so barbarously 

 treated before the race for the Gold Cup at Doncaster in 1778, that he was 

 unable to start, though he recovered later on, and did well at the stud. Sir 

 Thomas won the St. Leger in 1778, 1779, and 1798, with Hollandaise by Matchem, 

 Tommy by Wildair, and Symmetry by Delpini, and the Oaks of 1803 with Theophania 

 by Delpini. The traditions of the family were well kept up by his son-in-law, who 

 owned Sootlisayer and Jerry. Another famous sportsman from the north was Mr. 

 William Fenwick, of Bywell, the racing fame of whose family I noticed early in 

 the Stuart period. He was the lucky owner of Malckem, by whom he cleared 



The Duke of Bridgewater's 

 "Shapeless." 



