498 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



There have been many famous politicians on the Turf, some of whom I have 

 tried to sketch in these pages ; but it may be doubted whether any was more 

 popular than Lord Palmerston, who became Secretary of War when he was five 

 and twenty, and enjoyed the confidence and respect of nearly every section of his 

 countrymen before he died as Prime Minister and was buried in Westminster 

 Abbey. It might be difficult to manage affairs now as he did then ; but his 

 undoubted pluck and his downright refusal to allow his country to be "put upon" 

 strongly appealed to the Briton of the day, who lived a simpler life and faced 



less complicated*- issues than do we. 

 His first hit on the Turf was Luz- 

 borough, who swept the west country 

 of every plate for which he entered, 

 and finally became a successful sire 

 of cavalry chargers in Virginia. The 

 pronunciation of his Iliona furnished 

 many a controversy among his friends 

 until the famous Dr. Whewell sent 

 word from Cambridge that the o was 

 short. Black and All Slack, Foxbury, 

 and Grey leg were names that smacked 

 more of the old-fashioned Turf, and 

 Bttckthorn was perhaps the best of 

 all, a nice type of Venison colt, who 

 stayed as well as his father, and won 

 at Lord Palmerston's favourite pro- 

 vincial meeting, Tiverton. But it was 

 the race for the Ascot Stakes of 1853 



which will always be remembered about this horse ; for in a field of thirteen he was 

 giving King Pippin a four-year-old like himself very nearly 2st. Alfred Day 

 (William's brother) lay so far behind his horses that less than a mile from home none 

 of the spectators thought anything of his chance. But he crept up round the bend, 

 and, coming with a rush at the distance, he won by half a length, amid great applause 

 from the public and the smart spectators in the stands. But Buckthorn never 

 got over it, and would never have won at all but for his very great superiority 

 over the other horses, whom he managed to beat in spite of lying as far out 



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The Third Viscount Palmerston. 



