232 'OLD q' 



and shallow comparison did not escape the censure 

 of toadyism. 



The year 1805 saw the last of the ' deep-red jacket 

 and black cap ' of Queensberry on the Turf : the colt 

 by Competitor was the last animal that bore his 

 popular colours, and then, alas ! not to victory. One 

 engagement, and that lost, was the closing event of 

 the Turf career of his grace, who had owned and run 

 racehorses close on sixty years. 



I think I may safely assert that the Duke had 

 been de facto leader of the Turf for at least half 

 a century. From a broad point of view, he had 

 never been excelled, or perhaps equalled, during 

 that period for a thorough knowledge of the sport, 

 from stud-farm to winning-post. Associated in his 

 mind, as the pursuit was, with the making or 

 earning of money, he did not obtrude its cash 

 character to the detriment of the sporting spirit 

 which possessed him. The way in which the Duke of 

 Queensberry met his engagements, while often, in 

 his earlier days, hard pushed, testifies to a desire 

 not to lower the name of Douglas by becoming a 

 Turf-defaulter, a scruple which, then or since, has 

 scarcely troubled the minds of many noblemen and 

 gentlemen so much as it did one they would, in 

 many ways, scorn comparison with. 



