SOME EARLY VICTORIAN OWNERS. 



503 



as Gemma di Vergy, who won thirteen out of his eighteen races as a two-year-old, 

 six out of eleven as a three-year-old, and once beat Fisherman. 



It is relief to turn to a very different racecourse, and a very different owner, in 

 taking the Earl of Eglinton as another type of the great racing figures of this period. 

 Few more picturesque figures than the young master of Eglinton Castle were to 

 be seen in the society of the first years of Queen Victoria's reign. The Tournament 

 by which he strove to revive the glories of a bygone chivalry made his name famous 

 wherever the tongue of Walter Scott was known and loved. The victories of 

 Bhie Bonnet, Van Tromp, and The Flying Dutchman: -spread -its glory even further, 

 and will keep it fresh while there is turf upon the moors of Doncaster. Lord 

 Eglinton's first win was 

 with Bathsheba for the 

 Ayr Plate in 1831, and 

 old George Dawson, 

 father of the famous 

 quartette, afterwards 

 trained the thorough- 

 breds which that victory 

 inspired him to obtain. 

 St. Benet and St. Martin 

 had too strong a rival in 

 the mighty Lanercost to 

 do all they might have 

 done in weaker years ; 

 but St. Benet won the 



Liverpool Cup of 1838 in smashing style, and carried confusion into the Irish 

 camp by beating Mr. Thomas Ferguson's famous Harkaway (who had to give 

 him islb.) after a desperate finish by a neck. Hark&way was classed by the 

 late Joseph Osborne with Ormonde, as the best pair of racehorses he had ever 

 seen, and I have already had to mention Harkaivays breeding and appearance 

 on p. 318 of my second volume. Known as "the Irish Eclipse" he secured a firm 

 reputation- in~England v as well, by^vimntng the Goodwood Cup two years running 

 in 1838 and 1839, and he is no doubt easily sure of a place among the twenty best 

 horses of his century. Four years after his defeat had so vigorously encouraged 

 Lord Eglinton in his racing career, Tom Dawson was showing his patron "the 



" Gemma di Vergy" by " Sir Hercules? 





