Eclipse (22 page)

¹⁰⁰
Or rather, traceable to imported sires and to English-domiciled mares whose precise breeding is unknown, but that may have included a good deal of Eastern blood. British racing, both Flat and National Hunt, has always been open to non-Thoroughbreds: in 1948, two English Classics, the 2, 000 Guineas and St Leger, were won by horses (My Babu and Black Tarquin respectively) whom the
GSB
considered unacceptable.

¹⁰¹
Match racing took longer to decline. One of the most celebrated races of the nineteenth century, drawing a hundred thousand spectators to York in spring 1851, was the match in which The Flying Dutchman (the 1849 Derby winner) defeated Voltigeur (the 1850 winner), avenging a shock defeat the previous autumn. A few matches continued to take place in the twentieth century, most famously – the fame of the contest revived by a hit book and film – between Seabiscuit and War Admiral on 1 November 1938, when Seabiscuit triumphed by four lengths.

¹⁰²
Baronet was a son of Vertumnus, who was standing at the O'Kelly stud. Vertumnus's sire was Eclipse.

¹⁰³
By a sire called Sampson, Allabaculia – unnamed, as was the race, in the first records – was a great-granddaughter of Flying Childers. Her dam is unknown.

¹⁰⁴
This famous story first appeared in print some 120 years later, in the second edition (1911) of
The History and Romance of the Derby
by Edward Moorhouse, who cited ‘tradition treasured by the descendants of Sir Charles Bunbury'.

¹⁰⁵
‘Bunburying', which probably has nothing to do with Sir Charles, is what Algernon does in Oscar Wilde's play
The Importance of Being Earnest
: it is the invention of a friend who must be visited, and who offers an excuse for pursuing one's interests.

¹⁰⁶
According to the Thoroughbred expert Peter Willett in
The Classic Racehorse
.

¹⁰⁷
The Derby distance had been extended to a mile and a half, and the runners set off on the opposite side of the Downs to the winning post, taking a course behind Downs House, where Dennis now had his training stables (see map on p. 88).A course on the near side of Downs House came into use in the late 1840s.

¹⁰⁸
Lord Derby's family was not to record another victory in the race until Sansovino triumphed for the 17th Earl in 1924.The current earl, the 19th, won the 2004 Oaks with Ouija Board, his only horse in training.

¹⁰⁹
The others are Blink Bonny (1857), Signorinetta (1908) and Fifinella (1916).The other fillies to have won the Derby are Shotover (1882) and Tagalie (1912). At the time of writing, the last filly to contest the Derby was Cape Verdi (1998); she went off favourite, but was unplaced.

DENNIS O'KELLY WAS A larger-than-life figure in the world of Sir Charles Bunbury, James Weatherby and the Earl of Derby. He competed against them, often with success. As the owner of Eclipse, he had bragging rights that they could not match. But he was never one of them.

In part, Dennis acknowledged this disparity. Although he referred to himself and his companions as ‘jontlemen', he did not make much effort to assume the disguise of a gentleman of the Turf. No top hat, embroidered waistcoat and lace-adorned cravat for him; he went about with battered headgear and an elderly, striped coat. An unmistakeable, bearish figure, he was at the centre of a kind of court at race meetings, gambling on the horses during the day and on dice in the evenings. When he was the caster – the player throwing the dice – at hazard, he demanded generous sums as stakes, and liked to brandish large wads of banknotes. One fellow, seeing Dennis apparently unable to find the note he wanted, asked to help. ‘I am looking for a little one, ' Dennis told him, flicking through his collection of hundreds. ‘I want a fifty, or something of that sort, just to set the caster.' Fifty pounds was more than a year's wages for many people.

Dennis's bravado implied that no pickpocket would dare to
tackle him. One did, in an upstairs room at an inn during Windsor races, and was spotted before fully extracting the notes. The assembly clamoured that they would drag the miscreant before a magistrate, but Dennis grabbed hold of him, hauled him to the door, and booted him down the stairs. ‘'Tis a sufficient punishment to be deprived of the pleasure of keeping company with jontlemen!' he observed.

The wad of notes also served to put people in their place. At the racecourse, a gentleman placing a bet with him asked, snootily, ‘Where lay your estates to answer for the amount if you lose?'‘My estates!' Dennis exclaimed. ‘Oh, if that's what you
mane
, I've a map of them here.' He got out his wallet, revealing notes worth many times the value of the gentleman's money – which also went into the wallet, and stayed there.

Dennis liked to bet on boxing matches too. Bare-knuckle fights were sometimes staged among the attractions at race meetings, usually on demarcated patches of ground; spontaneous bouts at venues such as Vauxhall Gardens and Marylebone Fields were also common. Jack Broughton, a boxer and author of the first set of rules for the sport, constructed a boxing amphitheatre on Oxford Street in London, with a rectangular platform for the combatants. Here, in 1750, the Duke of Cumberland was said to have lost a bet of £10, 000 when Broughton, amid allegations of match-fixing, suffered defeat at the hands of John Slack. A print of the fight has the title
The Bruiser Bruis'd: or The Knowing Ones Taken-in
. Cumberland, who had sponsored the amphitheatre, was furious, and closed it. Just over twenty years later, Dennis was also involved in a bent fight. The difference between Eclipse's breeder and Eclipse's subsequent owner was that Cumberland lost his money, whereas Dennis made sure not to.

The notorious fight between Peter Corcoran and Bill Darts took place at the Epsom race meeting in the spring of 1771. Corcoran, like Dennis, was born in County Carlow, and like him had been a chairman on coming to London. He had also heaved
coal, and was a natural boxer. ‘His aim was generally correct, and he scarcely ever missed the object in view, ' Pierce Egan later recorded in
Boxiana
(1812), a collection of boxing anecdotes. But Darts was the better known, with a reputation as ‘one of the most desperate hitters of the time', and was the favourite for the contest.

When, on entering the ring, Darts fought cagily, and before long threw in the towel, there were jeers and boos from the crowd, and soon reports circulated that Dennis, having backed his countryman Corcoran, had bribed Darts with £100 to lose. In his report of the affair, Egan protested, with a vehemence that may have been ironic, ‘Surely, no thorough-bred sportsman could commit such a bare-faced robbery!', adding that there had been no need for fixing, because Corcoran, according to the ‘best information', was twice the fighter that Darts was anyway.

Corcoran was not above taking a fall himself. At a fight against an opponent called Sellers, he began by knocking Sellers down; then, strangely, he backed off, put up little defence against a series of blows, and surrendered. ‘The poor Paddies were literally ruined, ' Egan – writing in the days before political correctness – noted, ‘as many of them had backed their darling boy with every farthing they possessed. St Giles was in a complete uproar, with mutterings and disapprobation at [Corcoran's] conduct!' Previously in dire financial trouble, Corcoran was suddenly flush again. But he soon sank back into poverty, ‘and was as much despised as he had been before respected; and was so miserably poor at his decease, that his remains were interred by subscription'.

Dennis was never poor again, although he did sometimes run short of funds. Eclipse was earning well; however, Dennis owned only one other stallion, Sultan, whose fee was just five guineas, and he was also paying for the upkeep of some fifteen racehorses, as well as various broodmares. He was acquiring land and properties too. In 1771, he bought nine acres on Epsom Downs next to the racecourse, stabled his racers there, and built a
house. Continuing to expand his portfolio of properties in the town, he eventually, in the 1780s, built his own house and stables on Clay Hill. A traveller, describing the ‘beautiful and elegant villa', reported that the drawing room at the O'Kelly residence was forty feet by twenty feet, and that there were twenty-five paddocks, as well as a fine garden. ‘Here, ' the traveller added, ‘I was entertained with a sight of Eclipse.' This bare mention dismayed one local historian, who lamented, ‘Oh! Casual and unresponsive scribe, who was entertained with a sight of the famous Eclipse and was satisfied to dismiss the subject in nine words.'

Like Lord Derby, Dennis and Charlotte entertained generously during race meetings. Their guest list was prestigious, with, in the 1780s, the Prince of Wales at the head; another royal, the Duke of Cumberland,
¹¹⁰
joined the party, as did nobles such as Lord Egremont and Lord Grosvenor, mingling with a selection of Dennis's less reputable associates, Dick England and Jack Tetherington among them. No doubt Charlotte brought her most lovely King's Place nuns to adorn the gatherings. While the entertainment may have been wild, Dennis insisted upon one rule: that no gambling should take place under his roof – ‘Nor would he ever propose or accept the most trifling wager in private company.'
¹¹¹

Did he think that gambling lowered the tone? It seems, from him, a somewhat hypocritical scruple.

The author of
The Genuine Memoirs of Dennis O'Kelly
pretended, with a rhetorical flourish, that this was when Dennis acquired his ‘O':

Who keeps the best house in England? was the frequent question – O! Kelly, by much. Who the best wines? O! Kelly, by many degrees. Whose the best horses? O! Kelly's beat the world. Who the pleasantest fellow? Who? O! Kelly. In short, such was the
frequent use of that ejaculatory vowel upon referring to the Count, that at length it became incorporated with his original name, and the harsh guttural of the consonant K was softened by the modest melody of the liquid O. No more humble Dennis Kelly. No more Mr Kelly. No more Count Kelly!

Dennis did not play the grand host with total authenticity, however, and his servants amused themselves with anecdotes about his gaffes. ‘John, bring us the apples, ' he would say, when referring to pineapples. One servant, ordered to buy fish in Epsom but reporting that he could not procure any, was told, ‘Go back, sirrah! Go back; and by Jasus, if you can't get fish, bring herrings.'

Like many wealthy people, Dennis could be generous in some respects, and mean in others. He would spare no expense in entertaining; he would throw money around with apparent carelessness at the racecourse; and despite the report that he had vowed never to be charitable again after the donation enforced by his misbehaviour with Miss Swinburne at York, he gave to good causes, such as the Benevolent Society of St Patrick. At a Society evening in 1786, Dennis succeeded the Marquis of Buckingham in the chair, and proposed toasts to the Marquis and to ‘the inland navigation of Great Britain and Ireland' – this being the period of intensive canal construction, offering work for Irish labourers. At the same time, some of his employees, particularly jockeys, complained about his evasiveness over payments. One, Tom Cammell, was very indignant: ‘Damn his fat, pampered guts; I have kept mine thin, and rode many a hard race to stuff his, and now can't get my money, without a still harder run over the course at Westminster Hall.' The reporter of this outburst suggested that Cammell was a victim of a temporary, gambling-induced cash flow crisis. Dennis, this reporter (John Lawrence) added, occupied a rare position in between sporting aristocrats and gamblers; though ‘not overladen and depressed in his career by scruples', he was no worse a man than his supposed superiors.

Class, however, is not a matter of achievement, nor of morality. While the Duke of Grafton could scandalize society without jeopardizing his Jockey Club membership, Dennis, the partner of a madam, had no prospect of gaining election. Similar, unspoken rules apply today. Current JC members, all upstanding people no doubt, could commit quite a few indiscretions without loss of status. Yet the porn baron David Sullivan, despite ownership of a string of racehorses and a victory at the Eclipse Stakes,
¹¹²
is unlikely to be joining any time soon.

Once a blackleg, always a blackleg, was the JC's unbending view of Dennis. Not being what Daniel Defoe called (satirically) a True-born Englishman was another of his demerits, as it has been for many others. His older contemporary, the Jewish financier Sampson Gideon, attained fabulous wealth and converted to Anglicanism, but failed to be awarded a title, only to see his son gain a baronetcy. This pattern, of recognition held over to the next generation, was also to be the O'Kelly story.

Dennis aspired to be a member of the Turf elite; he thought he should be a member. He was one of those people who believe that anything they set their minds to achieving is within their reach. Possessing a mixture of naivety and chutzpah, they often do get what they want, and they rise to a new floor in the social hierarchy; but they have failed to see, and are dismayed and bewildered to discover, that certain rooms on that floor are barred. Using a slightly different metaphor, the historian Roy Porter wrote in his history of the eighteenth century, ‘It was easy to rise
towards
the portal of the next status group. Crossing the threshold was more difficult, and required special visas.'