A RED-LETTER TURF YEAR 141 



is typical of how much our common mother, Dame 

 Nature, will do for us if we only obey haK her 

 laws. 



The year 1771 was a red-letter one in the Turf 

 career of Lord March (though afterwards beaten), as 

 he made forty-one ^ racing engagements, winning 

 nine, which brought him over three thousand pounds 

 in stakes, without bets. So, whatever had previously 

 perturbed his racing tastes proves to have been only 

 transient. 



In February 1772, ' M. and R.,' as his lordship sub- 

 scribes so many of his letters to Selwyn, writes ^ that 

 much-epistled person : ' There is no news, every- 

 thing is much as you left it ' — poor ' everything ' ! 

 He then relates how one of their gambling friends, 

 Colonel Crawford, continues to lose, and has all 

 but arrived at that common bourne of the habitual 

 gamester — impecuniosity ; having scarce 'anything 

 now remaining of all his riches but bad debts ; a crop 

 always abundant and without season.' But this 

 example did not deter his lordship, who still gambled 

 and played without any fear of the ' shades ' to 

 which his militant friend had gone. But Lord 

 March, as I have shown, knew the golden rule of 

 gambling — when to stop. He likewise appears to 



^ Vide Racing Analysis. ^ Appendix X 1. 



