The Earl of Glasgow. 29 



Eglinton, " one of the heroic stamp of Montrose and 

 Dundee," but still a grand Turf patriarch, whom no 

 defeat could quench. He had spent hundreds of 

 thousands during nearly half a century of racing life, 

 and yet not one of the three great events fell to his 

 "white body, crimson sleeves and cap," in which 

 Harry Edwards on Actseon, that most ungenerous of 

 finishers, defeated by a head the terrific rush of Sam 

 Chifney on Memnon. This York Subscription Purse 

 was, after all, the victory of his life. " Lord Glasgow 

 wins," was heard at the Two Thousand finish in 

 General Peel's year, and no shout was taken up with 

 greater zest by the multitude. " Old Glasgow always 

 goes straight to the winning-post," and " Rogues can 

 take no change out of him." Like Lord Exeter, he 

 could furnish his " surprises," and none greater than 

 when Rapid Rhone defeated Lord Clifden for the 

 Claret Stakes. Cheered on by the warmth and high 

 spirits of a Jocky Club dinner, he would match any- 

 thing in his stable, and when he could come to New- 

 market no longer, he wrote and desired his trainer to 

 turn his attention that way, so that while absent at 

 Hawkhead, he might still be doing something. To 

 one or two of his most wary opponents he was as good 

 as ; an annuity ; but on a memorable Houghton Satur- 

 day he laughed them all to scorn, and won six 

 matches in succession. No one was so wayward and 

 difficult to please, or so munificent when he was 

 pleased. His trainers " came and went like the 

 simoon," till at last men of standing in the profession 

 would not engage themselves to him without a 

 guarantee for at least three years. When he had 

 gone the round he would come back to the old ones, 

 although he had vowed, by all his gods, that they had 

 ruined his horses. Every trainer did that. Still, his 

 cheque was always there to the moment, and that was 

 like wine and oil to the wounds he inflicted with his 

 tongue. As for his favourite jockey, Tom Aldcroft, 



