GREAT BRITAIN: His Majesty Loses

Despite the cluckings of his doctors, George V wrapped himself in a thick ulster and went down to cold, wet Newmarket Heath last week for the Cambridgeshire. His Limelight was a starter, and the dope sheets and his trainers assured His Majesty that Limelight was the best horse he has owned since Scuttle won the 1,000 Guineas in 1928. Sweepstake investors had put up a total of $8,500,000 on the race. Limelight went to the post, through a sea of glistening mackintoshes, a 5-to-1 favorite. Up to the quarter-mile Limelight held the lead, seemed likely to win his nth race of the season. Then up out of the mud pounded a very dark horse indeed, Raymond, a starter at 33-to-1. Raymond’s jockey was a scrawny little South African named George Nicholl. Raymond’s owner was the great South African diamond tycoon. Sir Abe Bailey. Raymond finished an easy winner. His Majesty’s Limelight was not even in the money. “The King loses!” cried sympathetic spectators. King George dropped his glasses in his lap. Queen Mary in a thick purple coat patted his hand consolingly.

Next day George V took sporting consolation by mailing a challenge to his long-legged son-in-law, the Earl of Harewood. In Harewood’s trophy room is a silver-mounted riding whip that is one of the most famed racing trophies in Britain. Originally “The Whip” was a cravache used by peruked Charles II, but the original whip was lost, has been a will o’ the wisp for antiquaries these many years. The present trophy is supposed to have been carefully plaited from the tail of that greatest of stallions, the unbeaten Eclipse. Lord Harewood was given seven days either to forfeit The Whip or agree to race his father-in-law’s five-year-old Fox Earth for it at the Newmarket Spring Meeting next April.