94 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



Mrs. and Miss Stuart, Miss Polly Hickman, the 

 Duchess of Rutland, Lady A. M. Stanhope, Lady 

 Essex (daughter of Colonel Bladen, owner of 'the 

 Bladen stallion '), and Lady Monson ; and, as if 

 once more to testify to the ' family ' nature of 

 the sport, there is a ' Master' Boyes running or 

 nominating Merry Tom for the King's Plate at 

 Burford in 1777. 



All this is up to 1779, after which the number 

 of ladies who gniced the national pastime by 

 actually running or nominating horses seems 

 to have fallen off considerably (foreshadow- 

 ing the present state of things), as it is diffi- 

 cult to discover more than the Duchess of 

 Grafton, Mrs. Price, Lady Haggerstone, Miss 

 Tunnicliffe, the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of 

 Devonshire, and her sister Lady Duncannon (and 

 then only in a sort of private affair at Newmarket), 

 Mrs. Wentworth (of the great Northern family), 

 Mrs. Goodricke (wife of the Rev. Henry Good- 

 ricke, Prebendar}' of York Minster, proprietor of 

 the celebrated ' Old England mare,' and suspected 

 co-introducer of two-year-old racing), Mrs. Hut- 

 chinson (wife, probably, of the famous John 

 Hutchinson, ex-stable-boy and 'pal' of the Rev. 



