92 LORD GEORGE BENT IN CK. 



weight as 7 st. 5 lb. Tripoli made the running, and 

 was beaten a long way. This was done, as will be at 

 once recognised, to deceive the handicapper and the 

 public at large ; for these would naturally suppose, 

 without knowing to the contrary, that the horse 

 carried the weight of the other two-year-olds — about 

 3 st. 10 lb. or 4 st. But carrying the weight he did, 

 his form as shown was utterly untrue. Who would 

 suppose that this high-minded nobleman could have 

 done a thing which compelled the Jockey Club to 

 look on it with disgust, and in order to prevent a 

 repetition of the offence, to substitute fresh conditions 

 for those he had violated ? "We see this paragon of 

 perfection, for the sake of conquest and the achieve- 

 ment of an object wretched in itself, practising the 

 very thing which in others he sternly condemned. 



On the point, I take the following from Admiral 

 Eous's work on horse-racing : ' The chief alterations 

 are the specification of feather-weights (Rule 3), which 

 in the olden time were considered to be 4 st. ; and 

 feather, like catch weights, were not called into the 

 scales until it was discovered, in 1841, that Tripoli' 

 (Lord George's horse) ' carried 7 st. 5 lb. in the 

 Feather Plate — last three miles B. C Lord George's 

 brilliant talent, usually so effectively displayed, was 

 not shown to advantage over this affair ; for the flimsy 

 trick was seen through, and his worthy intentions 

 frustrated by his own folly. The light- weighted 

 Tripoli won the Somersetshire Stakes at Bath the 



