SOME EARLY VICTORIAN OWNERS. 



495 



" You cannot legislate for featherweights ; " and while there are still statesmen who 

 can find time to give consideration to the recreations of the people and the improve- 

 ment of horsebreeding, the best interests of the Turf will be safe. The only man 

 who has ever, I think, started two Derby winners in the same race, at any rate in our 

 time, was Lord Rosebery, a Prime Minister. The only owner except Lord Grosvenor 

 who ever won the Derby with two colts by the same sire and clam was His Majesty 

 King Edward VII. when Prince of Wales. The best stallion now alive is owned by 

 the Duke of Portland, Master of the Horse, to whom this third volume is dedicated. 

 A sport that is under the patronage 

 of the highest and best in the land is 

 never likely to fall far below the ideals 



- 



^c^S, . 



which they have set for it. 



" Let no man who has no need," 

 wrote Greville, in May, 1833, "who 

 is not in danger of losing all he has, 

 and is not obliged to grasp at every 

 chance, make a book on the Derby. 

 While the fever it excites is raging, 

 I can neither read nor write nor 

 occupy myself with anything else." 

 It was in this year that the nervous 

 and somewhat pessimistic Clerk of 

 the Council was staying at the Oaks, 

 " where Lord Stanley kept house for 



k 



The Fourteenth Earl of Derby. 



the first, and probably (as the house is 

 for sale) for the last, time." Greville 

 had seen his first Derby, when barely 

 fifteen, in 1809, and twelve years afterwards he was managing the Duke of York's 

 stable. When the royal stud was sold, he went to his uncle the Duke of Portland, 

 and then became confederate with Lord Chesterfield, and Mr. Payne was another 

 with whom he went into partnership later on. Alarm and Mango were his favourite 

 horses, and in the latter's Leger he writes that young Sam Day " sent his horse 

 through with such a terrific rush that his breeches were nearly torn off his boots, 

 and won by a neck." When the jockey was so badly hurt, Greville expressed his 

 opinion of him with greater feeling than was his wont. " The boy himself," he 



