336 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Jockey Club itself had several commoners, as we have seen, among its most cherished 

 members, like Mr. John Pratt of Askrigg, part of whose " epitaph " is worth 

 recording, even without the splendour of the original type. It runs as follows : 



"A character so eccentric, so variable, so valuable, astonished the age he lived in. Though small 

 his patrimony, yet, assisted by that and his own genius, he for upwards of thirty years supported all the 

 hospitality of an Ancient Baron. The excellent qualities of his heart were eminently evinced by his 

 bounty to the poor, his sympathetic feeling for distress and his charity for all mankind. Various and 

 wonderful were the means which enabled him with unsullied reputation to support his course of life in 

 which he saw and experienced many Trials and many vicissitudes of fortune, and though often hard 

 pressed, whipped and spurred by that jockey necessity, he never swerved out of the course of Honour." 



Here follows a long and humorous recitation of the various horses he owned, 

 which ends as follows : 



"Though never famed for gallantry, yet he had in keeping, at different periods, a Virgin, a 



Maiden, an Orange 

 Girl, and a Ballad 

 Singer, besides 

 several Misses, to all 

 of whom his attach- 

 ment was notorious ; 

 and, what is still 

 more a Paradox, 

 though he had no 

 issue by his lawful 

 wife, yet the nu- 

 merous progeny and 

 quick abilities of 

 these very females 

 proved to him a source 

 of supply. With all 

 his seeming peculi- 

 arities and foibles he 

 retained his Purity 



till a few days before his death, when the great Camden (afterwards Rockinghani) spread the fame 

 thereof so extensively as to attract even the notice of his Prince, who thought it no diminution of 

 Royalty to obtain so valuable an acquisition by purchase, and though he parted with his Purity at a 

 great price, yet his honour and good name remained untarnished to the end of his life." 



As the owner of Rcgulus, Mr. Martindalc entirely eclipsed his previous reputation 

 as a saddler. Two of the early St. Legers were won by an ex-stable boy, Mr. 

 Hutchinson, with Young Traveller and Beningbrough, and it was he as I mentioned 

 in the last volume who bred that other great winner Hambletonian, a bay grandson 

 of Eclipse by King Fergus out of Grey Highflyer. He was foaled in 1792, and did 

 splendidly as a three-year-old for Sir Charles Turner. In 1796 he repeated his 

 victory for the Gold Cup at Doncaster. His most famous match was one more case of 

 rivalry between the two fashionable sires, for Diamond was a brown son of Highflyer 



By permission of Sir Waller Gilbey. 



" Hamblctnnian " being rubbed down 

 after his race with " Diamond." 



