LORD GEORGE BENTINCK AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN TURF. 463 



about as ragged and unpromising as any bloodstock ever seen. " Lord George," 

 wrote Greville in his diary, "did nothing by halves, and was afraid of no man." 



His Miss Elis I reproduce from a painting, by Abraham Cooper, now in the 

 possession of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, which was presented to Kent in memory 

 of the triumphs in the Goodwood Stakes and Goodwood Cup, over which Lord 

 George won 30,000 in bets. Abdale is mounted, John is leading her (dressed in 

 his Gordon tartan waistcoat), and Kent is on the old grey mare in the Cluny Macpher- 

 son waistcoat, which is rather hidden by her head. Lord George further suggested 

 " Kitchener walking away in the distance, loaded with a leathern purse, with ' Good- 

 wood Stakes' inscribed upon it," but this the artist wisely omitted. It brings those 

 days much nearer to us to remember that Abdale only died in December, 1902, at 

 Richmond (Yorks)j in his 78th year. A replica of the painting hangs in Welbeck 

 Abbey, where the present Duke, who does not bet at all, is just as proud of St. Simon 

 as ever Lord George was of Miss Elis. But the good Lord George did to the 

 Goodwood Meeting and to racing in general is not to be measured by the extent of 

 his own gains or even by the names of his own winners. 



There have probably been few greater sensations in the world of sport than that 

 felt at the Goodwood Meeting of 1846, when it was found that Mr. Mostyn had 

 bought Lord George's entire racing outfit for ,10,000. "The world." said 

 Lord Beaconsfield, " has hardly done justice to the great sacrifice which he made 

 on this occasion to a high sense of duty. He had not only parted with the finest 

 racing stud in England, but he parted with it at a moment when its prospects 

 were never so brilliant, and he knew this well." Among the stud thus abruptly 

 dispersed was Surplice, the winner of the Derby and St. Leger of 1848 Lord 

 Beaconsfield describes how Lord George bore that supreme irony of fate. His 

 resolutions in favour of the Colonial interest had been negatived after all his labours 

 by the Committee on the 22nd and 24th. On the night of that second day he heard 

 that the horse he had sold had won the Derby. 



" He had nothing to console him and nothing to sustain him except his pride. Even that deserted 

 him before a heart which he knew at least could yield him sympathy. He gave a sort of superb groan. 



" ' All my life I have been trying for this, and for what have I sacrificed it ? ' he murmured. 



" It was in vain to offer solace. 



" ' You do not know what the Derby is,' he moaned out. 



" ' Yes, I do,' replied Lord Beaconsfield, ' It is the Blue Ribbon of the Turf.' 



" ' It is the Blue Ribbon of the Turf,' he slowly repeated to himself, and sitting down at a table 

 buried himself in a folio of statistics." 



Four months later he was dead. 



