CHAPTER VII 



QUEER CHARACTERS OF THE TURF 



It is curious to note the odd characters for whom the Turf 

 has at times proved attractive. John Elwes, most famous 

 of misers, loved the sport dearly, and another equally 

 griping disciple of Harpagon, Councillor Lade, was 

 devoted to racing. Bred to the law, Lade abandoned 

 his profession for the more congenial pursuit of the Turf, 

 breeding and training a number of horses at his seat, 

 Canon Park, between Kingsclere and Overton, in Hamp- 

 shire. His principal ambition was to win country plates, 

 and he never sent a horse to Newmarket until two years 

 before his death, when he won both classes of the Oatlands 

 Stakes with a horse christened Oatlands in honour of the 

 event. As a miser, he extended his saving to his stables 

 as well as to his kitchen and pantry ; and so wretched was 

 the condition of his numerous stud when the horses were 

 sold at Tattersalls after his death, that they excited uni- 

 versal pity in the towns and villages through which they 

 passed between Hampshire and London. Lade would 

 drive his curricle and greys the fifty-seven miles between 

 London and Canon Park without taking them out of 

 harness, or giving them more than a handful of hay and a 

 mouthful or two of water. He made the journey unattended, 

 as he considered " servants on the road were more trouble- 

 some and expensive than their masters." 



A queer character on the Irish Turf was Shawm, the 

 hump-backed jockey, who died some fifty years ago. His 

 employer was a sportsman named Brown, who lived in County 

 Galway, and amassed a considerable fortune by racing, 

 mainly through the prowess of his extraordinary jockey. 



When Mr Brown came of age, he had but little property 



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