78 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



However all this may be, two -year -old 

 racing and yearling racing seem to have been 

 far more in favour at Newmarket than in the 

 North, and led, no doubt, to that multiplica- 

 tion of short races which has been so much 

 deplored in later times. The chief among the 

 earliest patrons of the 'young' racing appear to 

 have been, as was only to be expected, the 

 wilder, more extravagant, experimental, specu- 

 lative, gambling spirits, together with the older 

 ' knowing hands,' and they included the Prince of 

 Wales, Lord Clermont (his tutor ad hoc\ the 

 Duke of York and his ' chum ' (Mr. Ladbroke, 

 the banker, whose name is perpetuated in Bays- 

 water), the reckless Lord Barrymore, the Right 

 Hon. and right gamblesome C. J. Fox, Mr. 

 'Jockey Vernon,' the cock-fighting Lord Derby, 

 the Duke of Oueensberry ('old O.'), Lords 

 Grosvenor, Foley, Orford, and Egremont, Sir 

 Willoughby Aston, Mr. Panton, and hoc gemts 

 omne. 



It was in the reign of George HI. that 'the 

 first gentleman,' who was to be George IV., won 

 his only Derby (in 1788, with Sir Thomas, by 

 Pontac), and that the Duke of York, who was 



