CAP AND JACKET

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 22, 12 February 1881, Page 223

CAP AND JACKET

THE CAREER OF THE LAST MARQUESS OF HASTINGS.

The death of the famous racehorse, Blue Gown, severs the last link which 130111111 the English Turf to the notorious "Hastings era " and suggests that a brief review of that most exciting period maj r not come amiss to colonial readers. Lord Hastings succeeded his brother as Marquess of Hastings, Earl of Bawdon, and Viscount Loudoun in 1851 when he was just nine years old. His income was about £30,000 a year and only two of the estates were entailed. The story of his brief but brilliant career on the Turf* in the course of which he dissipated two fortunes and ruined himself is told in the following article which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph the day after his death at the ■early age of twenty-six : — "'* The Earl's year ' lias reached a sad climax In the death of its leading actor. The Spider and the Fly drama is ended. That poor coroneted youth, who had crowded into six years more Corinthian excitement and weightier Turf cares than, many 'fast men' know in a lifetime, has laid down his weary load. He was only twenty-six in July, and he had frittered away two fine family estates. Betting Is said to be the touchstone of the Englishman's sincerity, but with the Marquess a craving for the odds had really become a disease. He worshipped chance with all the ardour of a fanatic. His wits were, he considered, Avorth to him in the Betting-ring at least £20,000 a year, and he sometimes threaded his way through the mazes of trials and public running with all the sagacity of a wizard. His public coups were often so brilliant that it was hardly to be wondered at that he believed in his own destiny and his power to break the Ring. He cared little whether the draining or other improvements on his Donnington estate were stopped, if he only got fresh supplies for another Newmarket campaign. The Ring, on the other hand, had marked him for their own, and- never left him. They would cluster beneath the Jockey Club balcony at Epsom, holding up their hands to claim his attention, and catching at his replies like a flock of hungry hawks There he would stand, smiling at the Avild tumult below, wearing his hat jauntily on one side, a red flower in his buttonhole and his colours round his neck, and cool and calm, wliile ' the talent ' made his horse a 'hot favourite ' at once, and a few slipped back to the Ring to follow his lead. For a time he was a perfect Cocker ; but he fell at last in the unequal strife, and the men who had ' drawn ' him most copiously were among those who set their faces most sternly against him when he wisbed to see the Heath once more.

The honour of being • the man who "belongs to' the Duke, or the Earl, or little Lecturer was no hurclen to him. He took quite naturally to the Turf from the first, enfolded under the wing of Danebury. In 1562 not six people at Newmarket knew who the slim lad was on the grey cob ; but the Ring soon saw that he was a veritable Hampshire ambassador when he put down the money so unflinchingly on a Danebury pot. To John Day's suggestion that in his position he was morally bound to have a nice yearling or two of his own, he leant no ungracious ear. When the rivalry round the Hampton Court and Middle Park Kings almost foamed into madness, and 2500 guineas and 2000 guineas were among the yearling prices of one afternoon, he was never tempted beyond 1650 guineas for King Charles, and 1500 guineas for Robespierre. The former would have been dear at 50 guineas, and the latter won well in the colours of another. His two best horses, the Duke (500 guineas) and the Earl (450 guineas), were among his cheapest purchases. The late Alfred Day first wore his colours on Garotter, in the Althorp Park Stakes at Northamption, and Sam Rogers won a Maiden Plate on that colt a few weeks afterwards. The first great victory for the ' red and white hoops ' was the Cambridgeshire of 1864, with Ackworth, which had been esteemed a dear two thousand purchase. Gradually his stables swelled to upwards of thirty, and about £70,000 were the spoils of six seasons. Catalogue was a great pet of his Lordship's, aad he did not care how much he backed her for in a Selling Sweepstakes, and how dearly he redeemed her. A cycle of barrenness followed one of profusion, and Mr. Padwick graciously allowed him, in 1865, to have Kangaroo at, it was said, £12,000, and he never won as many halfpence ; while the Duke was useless, from influenza, till half the season was over. In 1866, which produced him a One Thousand Guineas winner in Repulse, and a Goodwood Cup one in the Duke, the stable was once more ; at a deadlock for a Cesarewitcli horse ; but little Lecturer, a foal from the Sledmere sale, carried 7st. 31bs., and Avon, it was said, £40,000 for the Donnington party. A winter's reflection convinced his Lordship that Hermit could never win the Derby, and £103,000 was the price he paid for his thoughts. People were once wont to tell, almost below their breath, that ' Davis, the Leviathan, ' had been known to pay away £60,000 on the Derby. The present age is capable of greater efforts, as before the Monday the bankers and solicitors had been consulted, and the whule of the Marquess's losings were found for him. Thus panic was averted from ' The Corner ; ' but the fair lands of Loudoun passed from his hand. At Ascot his lucky star rose once more. Lady Elizabeth and Lecturer were both in form, and his Lordship kept backing them, and piling on the winnings again by a sort of geometric progression, gambling till he had won nearly half 'his am again.' It was now the turn for reverses. His Lordship rather fancied the Earl, but the stable overruled him in favour of Lady Elizabeth. The flying filly came back with a sadly chequered fame, a bad fifth for the Middle Park Plate, and yet the victress in one of the most wonderful of, modern matches at 9lbs. with the three-year-old Julius.

The Marquess had now fallen back again to nearly the same 'agony point' in finance as when he saw the ' all rose ' handed home for the Derby. A weary winter followed, and he was so driven from pillar to post by many troubles and* Turf creditors that he 'lost his interest in Turf matters, and bis head for calculations with it. The irritable Lady Elizabeth wasted to a shadow in her training ; and how the Earl was scratched, and then became the hero of the Parisians and the Ascot visitors, and how the feAv words that were dropped at York proved the precursor of his Leger doom, are all dark passages of Turf politics, and not easily forgotten. We saw the last of the Earl Avhen he Avas bought in, as stout as a burgomaster, for 3900 guineas, at Tattersall's, and then he departed to Findon, Avith a leg upon Avhose chances of standing a preparation each man seemed to differ Avith his fellow. The late Marquess had been abroad all the summer in his yacht ; but no northern breezes could fan him back to health. He came to Doncaster, from Norway, on crutches, and looking very ill and nervous; and Avell he might, as, instead of having a St. Leger Avinner, he had only the lean comfort of a veterinary certificate from Mr. Mayor. At the Ist October he Avas on NeAvmarket Heatli in a basket carriage, which he only quitted to say a Avord to the pretty Athena, ' Avhich once Avas mare of mine,' Avhen she Avas led back a Avinner. As at Doncaster, he did not go beyond 'a pony' or two. 'Mind, I'm to haA'e this paid,' said one Ring man Avhen he booked it to him ; and after that Aveek they saAV him no more. Nearly seven seasons had passed by since he first came, a lad of nineteen, fresh from Eton, to NeAvmarket ; and he left it, a shattered man, only to die. He spent some time at Folkestone, and visited town for a few days, before he set out for a Avinter .sojourn Avith his Avife on the Nile. Some few friends dared to hope that he might come back a neAv man, and live quietly in his old country home, and train the foals by the Duke. It Avas not to be. 'All the Avheels Avere down,' and now the fourth and the last Marquess of Hastings only lives in racecourse story." * The Earl was favourite for the Two Thousand Guineas and won tlie Grand Prize of Paris in 186 S.