Prince Of Wales "Warned Off"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 193, 16 August 1941, Page 6 (Supplement)

Prince Of Wales "Warned Off"

By WILLIAM J. BYRNE

Gentlemen Of England Refust To Race With H.R.H.'s Jockey

The warning off a racecourse of an heir-apparent is an event probably never heard of by present-day racegoers. Yet such history was made in England on October 30, 1791, when the Jockey Club provided a first-class sensation by "warning off" the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., so long as Sam Chifney, His Royal Highness' jockey, remained in his employ. Chifney, who was the leading rider in England at the time, was suspected of pulling Escape, one of the Prince's horses, and when H.R.H. stood by the jockey the Jockey Club intimated to him that the noblemen and gentlemen of England would not run their horses against him—virtually a warning off of all racecourses. Sam Chifney, who rode the Duke of Bedford's Skyscraper to victory in the Derby of 1789, was the first of a famous family of jockeys who blossomed forth into trainers and owners of racehorses, one of whom, Priam, won the Derby in 1830.

l.\ ms nay Chifney was regarded as the premier jockey, and his services were much sought after by the principal patrons of the turf. There was no mock modesty about old Sam Chifney. In his amusing autobiography he says:—"ln 1773 I could ride horses in a better manner in a race than any other person ever known in my time, and in 1775 I could train horses for running better than any other person I ever saw. Riding 1 learnt myself, and training I learnt from Mr. Richard Prince, training groom to Lord Foley." Salary Of £200 In 1790. he was engaged bv the 1 Prince of Wales, afterwards Geoi ge ' IV., to ride his horses at a safarv of £200 per year. His association with the racing fortunes of the HeirApparent, however, was destined to bring upon him great misfortune. i On October 29. 1791. the Prince's' horse Escape, ridden by Chifney, I took part in a race for six,tv guineas' over the Ditch In Course at Newmarket. There were four contestants and odds of 2 to 1 laid on Escape. I who finished last. His defeat caused much surprise, which became con-1 verted into uncontrollable anger i when, the very next dav. Escape again ridden by Chifney. won a Subscription Race of sixty guineas over l the Beacon Course. There were six I runners and Escape was third' favourite at 5 to 1 against. j The amazing reversal of form was held to be so inexplicable that Chifney was accused of cheating. After' the race on the first dav. the Princei n» Wales sent for Chifney and asked i for an explanation, reminding the i jockey that he had described Escape I as "The best horse in the world." The jockey maintained he was' still the best horse in England and : accounted for his defeat bv saving,' that the horse had not run" for' fifteen days and had been very : tenderly treated in the meantime-i notwithstanding he looks verv straight and handsome to the eye he is unfit to run." " i Later, Chifney heard the Prince say something about running 1 Escape the following day and he ventured to ask H.R.H. if the horse 1 really was to run. According to his account in "Genius Genuine" he said: 'T am very glad, because I think Escape will win to-morrow" The jockey then explained that the sharp gallop he had had that day had done Escape a world of good and would make him run faster and longer on the morrow. Took Jockey's Part Despite this apparently reasonable explanation, the stewards of the Jockey Club, the chief of whom was i Sir Charles Bunbury. declined to exonerate Chifnev, and Sir Charles was deputed to inform the Prince l that noblemen and gentlemen would not run their horses against him so long as he continued to employ! Chifney. , His Highness chivalrously took i Chifney's part, and so greatly did he' resent the treatment meted out to his jockey that he would have noth-1 ing to do with the turf for several years. He bestowed a pension on i Chifney senior, while two of his! sons, William and Samuel, were I attached to the Prince's stable and! enjoyed his favour to the end of his, life. i The Jockey Club was not purturbed. It thought, for instance, nowt" of warning off the Heath the first .gentleman in the land." for that was the effect of their decision.! Patrick R. Chalmers, rated in England as an authority on all subjects I connected with the turf, and author of "Racing England," tells a piquant story of the origin of the Jockey Club. He writes:— I The founding of this famous institution scorns to have been a matter, ■ more or less, of chance. But it befell that in the middle 1700's there I ■ existed, in Pall Mall, a fashionable I coffee house. It was called the Star I' and Cartel- and was, of course, no j • more a club, as we know the word, i than is the Ritz cocktail bar to-dav. I But it was the chosen house of call of I' noblemen and gentlemen, the swell! 1 "macaroni" of the moment. And we may imagine, did any mere citizen look in there, that he was "bonneted" at the very mildest, or discouraged even more violently from repeating the indiscretion. The habitues of the place met there to gossip, gamble (and cheat each ; , other), to quarrel (and settle it like \ men there and then, and with the' "raw-tins"), and generally to pass the time agreeably. j George Selwyn*. the Wit. was an habitue, and of him Lady Sarah Bunbury. wife of Sir Charles Bunbury, a noted "blood," wrote in 1776: . "A Mr. Brereton, a sad vulgar.; betted at a table where Mr. Meynell the Duke of Northumberland, and I ♦ k r( * ° ss °ry were playing cards at the Star and Garter coffee house- hlost and at once accused the Duke unuLot-ii Ossory of being cheats in

: general, "lie Earl of Barrymorc i thereupon took the opportunity of | thrashing the vulgar Mr. Brereton." ' Which of the Earls of Barrymorc j it was who took upon himself thus to ! avenge his order is not cleyr. Just I about then, three brothers succeeded to that peerage in a rapid sequence. i The three were known, appropriately, as "Oripplegate," "Newgate," and" •"Hellgate." the last name, on-.! imagines, emphasised the fact that its bearer was in Holy Orders. ! "Cripplegate" (fortunately lie shot ! himself when only in his twentyfourth year) must have been a cruel, if plucky, young brute. He uncarted. ! upon an occasion, a blind stag for his friends to hunt. and. again, in j the congenial company of the Star 'and Garter, offered, for a wager, to 'cat a live cat. It was. moreover, at the Star and Carter that a Mr. Chatworth was killed during a quarrel with Lord Byron, great uncle and immediate predecessor of the poet. ! Rollicking Beginnings It was from these rollicking beginnings that the Jockey Club was to become the honoured, arbitrary and j exclusive body which it did become and which it "still is. I It will be seen, however, that its j formation could never have been, as has been stated, for the purpose of imposing reform and purity upon : the Turf, its manners and its morals. ! Indeed, society might have been bet- ; ter employed in correcting its own [morals rather than those of the infant Turf. It was a period of laxity which saw the inception of the Jockey Club. It was a period during which YV'alpole, "genial gossip Horace," wrote that "a quarter of our peeresses Will soon have been the wives of half of our living peers." and when Lord Chesterfield, in his letters >to his godson, instructed that .wrung gentleman in the gentle art of seduction us a part of "a polite education." | The Star and Garter was noted j for its cellar and it-; cooking, and was I notorious for its prices. Here it was' then that the more seriously-minded among the Star and Garter's aristo- \ cratic clientele conceived the idea of: a Jockey Club. Clubs were springing up. in London and Edinburgh, like mushrooms. I And what more proper than that the decenter gentlemen who went racing at Newmarket, where "legs" I and crooks of all kinds abounded, should take a notion to form them-1 selves into- a coterie apart and possess at Newmarket, as in Pall. Mall, a meeting place of their own j whereto no one unapproved' (whether of high or low degree) might claim entrance? Origin Of Jockey Club The existence of the Jockey Club was. it seems, first called to public attention in the "Sporting Kalendar." In that early racing sheet, it is announced that "there will be run for, | at Newmarket, on May 1, 1753. a contribution Free Plate, by horses the property of the noblemen and gentlemen belonging to the Jockey Club at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall." The cat Uer members of the club were about a hundred. Twelve dukes are among the century and earls and baronets were plentiful. Sir Charles Bunbury and Lord March ("the former became the club's sort of Perpetual President," said a captious critic of his time) seems to have been prominent in the initiation of i the club rules, the first recorded ones being the allowance of 21b overweight and the disqualifying, for riding at Newmarket, any rider who should fail to declare that he was above the weight allowed "by the aforesaid resolution." Among trie notable baronet members I find the name of Sir John Lade; the very Sir John, Corinthian and amateur coachman, who figures so stirringly in "Rodney Stone." Sir j John became a friend of the Regent and married the attractive mistress of the highwayman Sixteen String Jack, when that worthy fellow suffered at Tyburn. I like Sir John Lade best when I picture him winning his well-known wager with Lord Cholmondeley. Sir John was a lightweight, my lord a welter. Nevertheless, Sir ■ John backed himself at Brighton to carry the latter, pick-a-back, twice round the Steyne. The story got abroad and all the pretty ladies from the Pavilion and elsewhere turned out in their frocks and furbelows, their coaches and cabriolets, to see the fun. The principals duly arrived and Lord Cholmondeley essayed the mount. Sir John, evading him, requested the peer to strip. "Strip?" cried my lord, changing colour. "What the devil's nonsense is this?" Said the baronet coolly: "I betted that I would carry YOU, not you and your clothes; your clothes are more than two pounds overweight. So strips my lord, and make haste, for you are keeping the ladies waiting."

Unequal to the occasion, Lord I Cholmondeley was compelled to * acknowledge defeat; he paid up more or leas gracefully. Among the club's "Lords," I may mention the twelfth Lord Derby. whose father had prudently prepared for his son's profusions by marrying the immensely wealthy Miss Smith. The twelfth earl founded, as all men know, the Epsom Derby and the Epsom Oaks. He was divorced from his first wife, Lady Elizabeth Hamil- | ton, in (says Mr. Black), "the orthodox style of the early members of the jockey club." My lady (and who shall blame her) not unnaturally ; objected to her lord's holding a main ■of cocks in her drawing room, and there were other reasons more cognisable to the law. As his second countess. Lord Derby chose Miss Ellen Farren, the great actress, whose "Lady Teazle" : suggested to her husband that he should name his great horse, and Derby winner, Sir Peter Teazle. j The Racing Calendar ' With the history of the Jockey Club there is closely connected the history of the Messrs. Weatherby and the "Racing Calendar." In, say, 1/70, came Mr. James Weatherby to make his name famous for all time in turf affairs. He became in sole control of Pond's "Kalendar," only he spelt it with a "C." The Jockey Club obtained proprietary rights at Newmarket in the later li 70's and the club entered into the course of progressive domina- . tion which was to culminate in an undisputed autocracy not only at Newmarket, but wherever in England the starting bell rang. One of the early innovations in this Weatherby's time was a fine piece of strategy and a "scoop" cali culatcd to extend the authority of the club and its origin throughout the land. This was the publication iii the "Calendar" of "Adjudged Cases." with a notification that, "with a view to promote a universal uniformity of decisions as well as to prevent the trouble of applica- ' tion to the stewards to occasionally j publish such adjudged cases as may be useful as precedents." In spite of a split-infinitive, the | decision seems a masterpiece of . policy and. since the prominent ; owners and breeders, both of the j northern and southern turf. Vere all ' club members, one was sure of find- : ing favour and spreading the New--1 market influence from York to I Goodwood, from Lincoln to New- | bury. j ! Trespass On Course j It was in 1527 that for the first 'time a warned-off person was un-' ruly enough to dispute the right of < the club. The recalcitrant was a ! Mr. Hawkins. whose obstinacy '■ caused a charge of trespass to be i brought against him by the club in I the person of the Duke of Portland. The same was heard at the Cami bridge Assizes, where the right oi the Jockey Club to "warn off" was amply confirmed. This decision was upheld in Court, once more, in 1869, when ' •Argus." the racing correspondent of the "Morning Post," refused to | acquiesce in a warning-off against : him and appealed, vainly, to the law of the land. | The name "Hawkins." coupled ' with racing and the law, reminds me of a storv of Sir Henry Hawkins. Lord Brampton later, the disciple of Drace. and known as the -Hanging Judge." j In reality, his lordship was the i kindliest oi men. lover of animals, lover of racing. On an occasion at Sandown Park, a distracted owner, two horses running in his colours for the same event, sought, it seemed 1 vainly, for a black cap whereby Cannon might bo distinguished from Loates. Mr. Justice Hawkins happened into the paddock. "Ask Hawkins." suggested a helpful friend. "He's sure to have one in his pocket." A decision of interest to the racing public generally was reached in 1842, when the "Calendar" announced that "the Jockey Club and the stewards thereof will henceforward take no cognisance of any dispute or claims in respect to bets." j This transference of squabbles to' the committees of Tattersalls and of the subscription rooms at New-, market did not mean that the Jockey . Club ignored betting, for the mem- '. hers of both committees were usually members of the Jockey Club, too. ' But it enabled the club to shirk the'. disagreeable duty of taking direct action against any one of its own members who might be (as was the Marquis of Hastings in Hermit's, year) in default. j The club may be said to have' reached its present-day omnipotence when, in 1844. in consequence of the "Running Rein" scandal (see "Eight o'clock" of August 2), it was "arranged that the stewards of the Jockey Club for the time being should be ex-officio stewards at Epsom. This provision was extended in 1857 to Royal Ascot, and in 1881 to Goodwood. The compliment still holds at these three famous fixtures whereas other occasions are controlled, on invitation of the proiectors of the meeting, to local stewards who, do difficulties arise, must report to the Jockey Club, whose decision is final. | So it will be seen that from the jolly, moon-raking company ojf the Star and the Garter has been born a great and splendid institution a small, self-elected body of the highest standing whose powers are absolute, but whose tyranny is both bene-1 ficial and judicious. I