288 IRISH SPORT AND SPORTSMEN. 



the same meeting he brought his racing career— a 

 very brilliant one it was — to an end, and won a handi- 

 cap of 40 sovs. * 



The years 1847 and 1848 were unlucky ones so far 

 as Lord Waterford's fortune on the turf was concerned. 

 At the end of 1848, Byrne resigned, and, purchasing 

 Mountjoy Lodge, set up as a public trainer. His 

 Lordship's horses were then placed under the care of 

 an adf^pt at the business, Robert I'Anson. 



With the change of trainers there came a turn of 

 luck, and in 1849, twelve winners hailed from the 

 stable. Queen Margaret, the dam of Lord Drogheda's 

 Clarence, Mons Meg, Queencake, King Rene, &c., 

 won the Angleseys, and proved herself to be the best 

 animal of her year, with the exception, perhaps, of 

 Mr. Watt's Marchioness D'Eu. Her stable companion 

 of the same age, Robert (brother to Bon Mot), was 

 also a speedy colt. Brother to Rat-trap, Cracow, 

 Postilion, Modesty, Sir John, and others, carried " Lord 

 Henry's" colours first past the post during that year, 

 six of Her Majesty's Plates falling to them. The 

 form shown by Sir John, a fine cut of a chaser by 

 Windfall, dam by Middleton, at Liverpool, in Novem- 

 ber, was excellent, when seventeen were weighed out 

 for the Grand Autumn Free Handicap, value 330 sovs., 

 and some of the best chasers in the world were amongst 

 them, and ridden by the most accomplished horsemen. 

 The distance was four miles, over what was truly de- 

 scribed as "a fair hunting country." J. Mason was 

 on Proceed, favourite at 3 to i ; the second in 

 demand was that great four-year-old. Vain Hope, 

 and at sixes Sir John was third best in the market. 

 Lord Strathmore piloted his own horse, The Doctor, 



