GENTLEMEN RIDERS 



THE FIRST MARQUIS OF CLANRICARDE 



In the late "twenties" of the past century, about which period, 

 thanks in no small measure to the enterprising Tommy Coleman 

 of St. Albans, steeplechasing became a popular institution in 

 the land, there were, if history is to be relied on, few finer 

 exponents of the sport than that keen young Irish sportsman, 

 the Marquis of Clanricarde. 



Born on the 20th December, 1802, he succeeded his father 

 as fourth Earl on the 27th July, 1808, being advanced to an Irish 

 Marquisate in 1825, and afterwards created a Baron of the 

 United Kingdom. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he married 

 Canning's daughter shortly after leaving the University, his 

 father-in-law at the same time appointing him his private 

 secretary. 



Lord Clanricarde made his first appearance as a gentleman 

 rider at the Curragh in 1822, then being twenty years of age, 

 and he won the first Corinthian race ever run in Ireland on 

 a horse called Penguin, by Waxy Pope, on whose back he took 

 the same race the following year. At Loughreagh once he won 

 a good race on a miserable-looking horse named Sarsparilla, 

 belonging to the parish priest, the result so delighting the 

 "pisantry" that one of them was heard to exclaim, "Sure, if 

 he was on an Ass of Father Pater's wouldn't he have a roight 

 to wm : 



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