the Suffolk town to face his sternest test yet. He was to race in a match against Bucephalus, the finest horse in the stables of Peregrine Wentworth, a Yorkshire MP and landowner with substantial racing interests and a reputation for sartorial elegance. Bucephalus was another five-year-old chestnut, and he came to the match unbeaten; his prizes included the 1769 York Great Subscription, which was among Eclipseâs future engagements. He had the same parentage as Spilletta, Eclipseâs mother, 69 and thus was Eclipseâs uncle. 70 Wentworth had made the match with William Wildman, contributing 600 guineas to Wildmanâs 400 â another way of expressing odds about Eclipse of 4â6.
The prelude to this famous race, which took place on 17 April 1770, is the subject of George Stubbsâs Eclipse at Newmarket, with a Groom and Jockey . Eclipse and his human companions are at the rubbing-house at the start of the Beacon Course, four milesaway from the Newmarket stands. The groom looks apprehensive; the jockey is purposeful and confident; the horse is fit and alert. The scene is quiet, but pregnant with the implication of the superlative performance to come. 71
Eclipse and Bucephalus, nephew and uncle, set off from the Beacon Course start, Eclipse assuming the lead as usual. They galloped for more than two miles before taking a dog-leg right turn and heading towards the finish. As they came within sight of the stands, Bucephalus moved up on Eclipseâs flank to challenge, goading Eclipse into the most determined gallop of his career. Eclipse surged ahead. Bucephalus strained to keep in touch until, broken, he fell away, leaving Eclipse to arrive at the line well in front. Bucephalus never raced again. Eclipse, by contrast, shrugged off his exertions to race again two days later.
The records of the match in the racing calendars list Eclipse as Mr Wildmanâs. But Dennis commissioned the Stubbs painting to mark the victory. And the horse was certainly in Dennisâs ownership on 19 April, the date of the Newmarket Kingâs Plate. The race was in four-mile heats over the Round Course (a vanished feature of the Newmarket landscape adjoining what is now the July Course), and Eclipseâs opponents were a fellow five-year-old, Pensioner, and two six-year-olds, Diana and Chigger. Diana was the winner of previous Kingâs Plates at Newmarket, York and Lincoln. Chigger had already lost once to Eclipse, at the 1769 Kingâs Plate at Winchester. He was owned by the Duke of Grafton, who had resigned recently as Prime Minister and who a few years earlier had scandalized certain sections of society by flaunting his mistress, the courtesan Nancy Parsons. Grafton, later to own three Derby winners, once skipped a Cabinet meeting because itclashed with a match involving one of his horses. In common with the sport he patronized, he was despised by Horace Walpole (he who had got âtiredâ halfway through watching a race), with the result that his reputation is locked to Walpoleâs description of him as âlike an apprentice, thinking the world should be postponed to a whore and a horseraceâ.
Chigger got no closer to Eclipse at Newmarket than he had at Winchester, and was withdrawn after Eclipse won the first heat. Mr Fenwick, owner of Diana, decided that his mare had no chance of adding another Kingâs Plate to her tally. Only Pensioner maintained a challenge to Dennisâs horse. Dennis made his way to the betting post, where he found Eclipse quoted at 7-4 and 6-4 to distance his single rival. This is the moment, in some accounts, when he announced, âEclipse first, and the rest nowhereâ, or, âEclipse, and nothing else.â But if the Newmarket race is the source of the legendary prediction, the phrasing must have been tampered with, because âthe restâ was a single horse. So it seems more likely that he uttered the words at Eclipseâs Epsom debut.
The prelude to this famous race, which took place on 17 April 1770, is the subject of George Stubbsâs Eclipse at Newmarket, with a Groom and Jockey . Eclipse and his human companions are at the rubbing-house at the start of the Beacon Course, four milesaway from the Newmarket stands. The groom looks apprehensive; the jockey is purposeful and confident; the horse is fit and alert. The scene is quiet, but pregnant with the implication of the superlative performance to come. 71
Eclipse and Bucephalus, nephew and uncle, set off from the Beacon Course start, Eclipse assuming the lead as usual. They galloped for more than two miles before taking a dog-leg right turn and heading towards the finish. As they came within sight of the stands, Bucephalus moved up on Eclipseâs flank to challenge, goading Eclipse into the most determined gallop of his career. Eclipse surged ahead. Bucephalus strained to keep in touch until, broken, he fell away, leaving Eclipse to arrive at the line well in front. Bucephalus never raced again. Eclipse, by contrast, shrugged off his exertions to race again two days later.
The records of the match in the racing calendars list Eclipse as Mr Wildmanâs. But Dennis commissioned the Stubbs painting to mark the victory. And the horse was certainly in Dennisâs ownership on 19 April, the date of the Newmarket Kingâs Plate. The race was in four-mile heats over the Round Course (a vanished feature of the Newmarket landscape adjoining what is now the July Course), and Eclipseâs opponents were a fellow five-year-old, Pensioner, and two six-year-olds, Diana and Chigger. Diana was the winner of previous Kingâs Plates at Newmarket, York and Lincoln. Chigger had already lost once to Eclipse, at the 1769 Kingâs Plate at Winchester. He was owned by the Duke of Grafton, who had resigned recently as Prime Minister and who a few years earlier had scandalized certain sections of society by flaunting his mistress, the courtesan Nancy Parsons. Grafton, later to own three Derby winners, once skipped a Cabinet meeting because itclashed with a match involving one of his horses. In common with the sport he patronized, he was despised by Horace Walpole (he who had got âtiredâ halfway through watching a race), with the result that his reputation is locked to Walpoleâs description of him as âlike an apprentice, thinking the world should be postponed to a whore and a horseraceâ.
Chigger got no closer to Eclipse at Newmarket than he had at Winchester, and was withdrawn after Eclipse won the first heat. Mr Fenwick, owner of Diana, decided that his mare had no chance of adding another Kingâs Plate to her tally. Only Pensioner maintained a challenge to Dennisâs horse. Dennis made his way to the betting post, where he found Eclipse quoted at 7-4 and 6-4 to distance his single rival. This is the moment, in some accounts, when he announced, âEclipse first, and the rest nowhereâ, or, âEclipse, and nothing else.â But if the Newmarket race is the source of the legendary prediction, the phrasing must have been tampered with, because âthe restâ was a single horse. So it seems more likely that he uttered the words at Eclipseâs Epsom debut.
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