RACING AT THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



325 







" The sweetest little horse that ever was ! " exclaimed Lady Sarah Bunbury, 

 when she saw Gimcrack win his race, and forgot all about the new Ministry ; and 

 " the sweetest little horse " he has been to every lover of the Turf from that day to 

 this, not only because a Club was founded nine years after his birth to keep his 

 memory green, but for his own sake and for the sake of the memories that have 

 gathered round his name from 1769 to the present year of grace. Gimcrack, a grey 

 colt, was bred by Mr. Gideon Elliott, of Murrell Green, Hants, in 1760, and was got 

 by Cripple Miss Elliott, by Grisewood's Partner (a grey horse, son of Partner 

 Mutton's Grey Barb Marc, and back to Woodcock}, her dam by Partner Grey 

 Brochlesby, with a strain of the Lister Turk through the Hobby Mure. Cripple was 

 got by the Godolpliin 

 Arabian out of Godol- 

 pliin Blossom, a daughter 

 of the famous grey horse 

 Crab, son of the A/cock 

 Arabian, dam by F lying 

 Cluldcrs out of Miss Bel- 

 voir, who had strains of 

 the Brownlono Turk, the 

 Leeds Arabian, and the 

 Old Morocco Mare. This 

 is high-class breeding, 

 though an unusual 

 blend, and neither in 

 size nor colour would 

 Gimcrack have satisfied the connoisseurs of a later day. Gustavus and 

 Frederick, who won the Derby in 1821 and 1829, were both greys; Mr. 

 Elmore's Grimaldi, who died on the post in the St. Alban's steeplechase of March, 

 1830, was a grey ; and so was Chanticleer, as late as 1848 ; but the predominance of 

 the bays soon asserted itself, after winning sixteen Derbys and seventeen St. Legers 

 between 1825 and 1855 ; and after it chestnuts and browns seem in that order to be 

 the usual colours for a good one. There was, however, nothing much amiss with a 

 horse which could win twenty-seven out of his thirty-five races for very various 

 owners. Gimcrack first faced the starter at Epsom on May 31, 1764, and won a 

 ^50 Plate, two-mile heats, in a field of six, distancing three of his competitors. At 

 Guildforcl, Winchester, Bedford, Barnet, Reading, and Burford, he won similar plates 



Mr. WentwortK 's "Ckatsworth" 

 by "Blank:' 1 



