JACK GLOVER: Hello and welcome to the National Trust Podcast.

I'm producer Jack Glover. We hope you're enjoying season

seven and we have plenty of exciting episodes and new

stories still to come.

Today's episode is a bit of a favourite from our archives and

a nod to a mini-series we released a little while ago

called 125 Treasures, which accompany the National Trust

book by the same name.

If you've not heard it before, in this episode called for Horse

on the Staircase, we delve into the world of horse racing and

uncover this treasures hidden criticism of its owner.

The podcast is episode two of the series and is presented by

Alison Steadman.

ALISON STEADMAN: Less than 20 miles from the centre of

Belfast, lies Strangford Lough, the largest sea lake in the

British Isles. As you turn your back on the lough and enter the

Mount Stewart estate, the scents hit you all at once.

Curry, Eucalyptus, and the sweet smell of candyfloss tickle your

nostrils as you wind your way through the labyrinth of garden

rooms, temples, lakes and woodland until you're finally

confronted with the jewel in the crown of the estate Mount

Stewart house, a sprawling Georgian mansion and the resting

place of a controversial treasure steeped in the world of

high stakes gambling and thoroughbred racing.

I'm Alison Steadman and this is 125 Treasures, a podcast from

the National Trust. Episode two The Horse on the Stairs.

FRANCES BAILEY: My name is Frances Bailey, and I'm the

senior national curator for the National Trust in Northern

Ireland. The House is two stories high, built of a very

dark rubble stone.

The great entrance doors in front of me are being opened.

I go under the portico into the entrance hall.

Very welcoming and comfortable. On cold winter days, the fire is

lit. Green walls and a green ceiling. Unusual, but very

effective. And lovely. Comfortable furniture set around

the place.

ALISON STEADMAN: Mount Stewart House has been the home of the

Stewart family, the Marquess Of Londonderry, for over 250 years.

It started life as a relatively modest building, but was

transformed, formed into the imposingly Grand mansion it is

today in the early 19th century.

Largely thanks to the heiress lady Frances Ann Vane-Tempest,

who married its owner, Charles the third Marquess Of

Londonderry, in 1819.

FRANCES BAILEY: There are glass doors on one side of the

entrance hall, opening those now, moving through a little

passageway and into the central hall.

It's an entirely different space. The big octagon in the

centre, double height with a great flat skylight above it.

Pouring light down into the central space.

Columns and pilasters all around, painted a beautiful,

deep greeny blue, set out against the stony colour of the

walls.

ALISON STEADMAN: Frances Anne had inherited her vast fortune

from her father, Sir Henry Vane-Tempest, a politician and

landowner who had a reputation as a heavy drinker and a

gambler. His daughter had more refined tastes, as can be seen

throughout the house.

FRANCES BAILEY: In the central hall, there are four apsis with

sculptures in them. And one of them is Frances Anne

Vane-Tempest. And here she is in classical garb with her eldest

son.

Well, I'm leaving behind the great Central Hall and moving

through these great mahogany doors into the earlier part of

the house built in about 1803.

And turning back on myself, I find myself at the foot of the

great staircase.

Just going up the stairs of the hearth landing and actually all

I can see is, is the hooves of the animal, the grass in the

foreground.

It measures about 6ft by 12ft and it practically fills the

wall of that hearth landing over the staircase.

You have to really stand back from it to understand what the

painting is about.

It's called “Hambletonian, Rubbing Down”.

For me, “Hambletonian, Rubbing Down” is one of the greatest

works by one of the greatest British painters.

And it's, I would think, one of the greatest paintings in

Northern Ireland, certainly within the National Trust

properties.

But it's the force of it’s... it’s composition and it’s story

and the emotion behind it that for me really makes it a

masterpiece.

ALISON STEADMAN: The painting's story begins with Frances Anne's

father, the infamous Sir Henry Vane-Tempest, a man known for

his high living and his love of betting.

And at Newmarket races on March the 25th, 1799, Henry landed the

biggest win of his life.

MIKE HUGGINS: Newmarket’s on the borders of Cambridgeshire in

Suffolk. And it's quite a small town.

ALISON STEADMAN: Mike Huggins is professor of Cultural History at

the University of Cumbria and author of Horse Racing and

British Society in the Long 18th Century.

MIKE HUGGINS: It wouldn't be expected really to have a race

meeting in terms of its size, but it's got by far the highest

status in terms of racing because of the people at the

tracks.

So more and more of Newmarket is occupied by ancillary things for

racing. You know, it's... it's smiths, it's harness makers,

it's breeders. All those other jobs are taking place in

Newmarket.

From that point of view, as the centre of racing in England at

that time.

In terms of sport, racing held the leading position far more

important than things like boxing or cockfighting or any of

the many sports were flourishing at the time. If you imagine the

cup final or in football or any of those things today, it had a

bigger position than any of those.

ALISON STEADMAN: Race day was a huge social event where people

of all classes mingled dances were held and tents were set up

selling food, drink and even sex.

It also involved a great deal of high stakes gambling.

MIKE HUGGINS: Betting in gambling halls, a unique place

in Georgian society, because it's a thing that a lot of

people do in different ways. Even the middling classes would

play cards and invite folk around to play cards together

for small stakes and for the elite, it was a mark of status

and position.

ALISON STEADMAN: For the rich, gambling conveyed the idea that

you were not risk averse. It affirmed your aristocratic

status, showing that you weren't bogged down in the tiresome

nitty gritty of everyday life.

MIKE HUGGINS: The atmosphere on race day is one which is, by and

large, highly masculine, because by and large, the people who go

there are these high status players who are wagering and

betting and drinking and gambling in the coffee house for

cards and dice as well.

Newmarket is attractive for this racing elite who have the best

horses, the thoroughbreds, the most expensive horses.

They make the most extravagant wages and to them a lot of the

fun isn't in a race where several horses compete about

half the races at Newmarket and what they call matches.

Where two men agree together to race the horses against each

other for a specific amount. And other folk will bet on it. But

the two individuals stake an amount. One is going to lose.

One is going to win.

ALISON STEADMAN: And it was just such high profile match ups that

attracted men like Sir Henry Vane-Tempest.

MIKE HUGGINS: He didn't start off rich when he's born in 1771,

he's not that well off but his relatives are!

And bit by bit he inherits very large estates in in the north.

He gets coal mines in County Durham. He is a very, very rich

man. You'd see him as a multi-millionaire nowadays. He

has money to burn. He's become MP for Durham, but he's also a

gambler.

He's rash at times. He's quarrelsome, he's argumentative.

He is not well liked. But it doesn't matter. Why should it

matter? He’s got plenty of money. He can afford to be

disliked.

Because of his racing he becomes a member of the Jockey Club, and

he's. And he's making more and more matches, not just at high

status places like York, but also down at Newmarket.

ALISON STEADMAN: The jockey Club still exists today as the body

that runs horse racing.

In Georgian times It was an elite organization of

exclusively male landowners and MPs who, as the name suggests,

ran the sport like a private club.

They were out in full force at Newmarket that day to witness

one of the greatest match ups of the age.

MIKE HUGGINS: The match itself is between the Sir Henry

Vane-Tempest’s horse'Hambletonian' and Joseph

Cookson's Horse'Diamond'.

But the match itself is set up. The stakes are made. The

previous year in August at York races. And each of them put 3000

guineas on the match.

Interest is generated almost immediately because of the size

of the wager. It's a big wager. It's a very, very big wager.

ALISON STEADMAN: A few years earlier, Henry had decided he

wanted to take his obsession with racing to the next level.

He purchased Hambletonian, the grandson of two superstar

racehorses,'High Flyer' and'Eclipse'.

Today, 95% of thoroughbreds can still trace their lineage back

to Eclipse. The race was a classic North versus South

encounter. Diamond was the pride of the South, while Yorkshire

born Hambletonian represented the North.

MIKE HUGGINS: And of course, the amount of interest in this race

means that there's lots of public interest in the race

itself.

Everyone's reading about it. The papers are full of it and

everyone wants to know what the results are going to be.

ALISON STEADMAN: The crowds descended en-masse.

MIKE HUGGINS: There were so many folk wanted to see the actual

match that first of all, all the accommodation in Newmarket

disappeared very quickly.

Every single coach was booked two weeks before, so the crowds

would have been very large. Everyone wanted to see it.

ALISON STEADMAN: The race attracted feverish expectation

as to which horse would triumph. Hambletonian had only ever lost

one race, but was only the narrow favorite.

MIKE HUGGINS: The races is four miles so it went right out into

the country so people wouldn't be able to see the start unless

they rolled out to see the start.

ALISON STEADMAN: As the starter lowered his flag, the horses

raced off with the spectators who'd ridden up to see the start

riding along behind them.

MIKE HUGGINS: When the race starts and they're both

competing from the onset. But it was only in the last four

furlongs, which is a half a mile from the finish when they really

started to fight and they were both fighting like mad.

Those jockeys were doing everything they could to get

over the line. Buckle on Hambletonian, then there’s

Fitzpatrick on Diamond and they were both doing everything they

could to win.

ALISON STEADMAN: And finally, in the last few strides,

Hambletonian inches ahead and wins by a neck.

MIKE HUGGINS: Everyone's going mad that all the crowds are only

going mad and some are cheering, some are cursing.

ALISON STEADMAN: And no one was more ecstatic than Sir Henry

Vane-Tempest.

But as this was a match, not a race, there was no gold cup at

the end, no trophy to show off.

So Henry decided to commission two paintings from the great

animal painter of the 1700s, George Stubbs.

Stubbs had previously worked for some of the wealthiest families

in the land, like the third Duke Of Richmond and the second

Marquess Of Rockingham.

MIKE HUGGINS: It made sense to commission Stubbs to paint one

or two pictures for Vane-Tempest, then to be able to

display.

So when you have your house party, when guests come in, you

walk into the hall or the dining room or the library. If you've

got your painting that shows your horse the winner of the big

race and the horse, he is a symbol of your status, your

power, your wealth, your position, your ability to own

the equivalent of a Maserati or a Ferrari of the time.

This is a top horse, just like you'd have a top car or a top

yacht nowadays.

FRANCES BAILEY: Henry commissioned Stubbs to paint two

pictures of Hambletonian following his victory against

Diamond and were told that one would represent Hambletonian in

winning the race and will be a remarkable fine likeness of the

horse and of Buckle the rider and the other will represent the

horse rubbing down after the race and is as large as life.

And Vane-Tempest actually advertised this and said that

there were going to be prints made of these paintings and they

were going to be sold. So it was both a way of advertising the

brilliance of his horse and also raising some cash.

In fact, the prints were never done.

ALISON STEADMAN: Henry's plan to make more money may have failed,

but Stubbs managed to produce an artistic work of lasting

significance.

FRANCES BAILEY: Hambletonian rubbing down was painted at the

very end of his career, and in many ways, it sort of

encapsulates everything that his career was building up to.

George Stubbs was one of the great animal painters,

especially horse painters of the 18th century. He was born in

1724, the son of a courier, a leather curer, a leather dresser

in Liverpool.

And he was largely self-taught, but he decided that he wanted to

be a painter, and he announced this to his father, who was a

bit dismayed, I think.

But he persisted, and he became particularly interested in

anatomy, in how bodies worked, whether they were human bodies

or animal bodies.

ALISON STEADMAN: In 1744, aged 20, Stubbs driving ambition led

him to study anatomy at York County Hospital. What may have

attracted Henry to the work of George Stubbs was the anatomical

accuracy of his paintings.

FRANCES BAILEY: He then started to look at the anatomy of

horses, and during the 1750s, he spent about 18 months studying

the carcasses of horses, which he would rig up in a barn, in a

farmhouse, and where he was living for the time and over a

period of weeks, he would dismantle a horse carcass so,

take away layer by layer, and make the most extraordinary

detail drawings of what he found.

And these amazing drawings were to be incredibly influential.

What he really wanted to understand was how horses worked

and to be able to paint them better.

ALISON STEADMAN: In 1766, Stubbs published The Anatomy of the

Horse. Its detailed descriptions and illustration of the equine

body were an immediate success with artists, anatomists,

veterinarians and horse lovers. It became the work of reference

for all those working in the field of equine anatomy.

Fast forward some 30 years and Stubbs is still fascinated by

horses toiling away at the paintings Henry Vane-Tempest had

commissioned of Hambletonian.

In 1800 the painting was presented to Henry.

FRANCES BAILEY: Looking at this painting, what do I see?

The overwhelming presence in the painting is a great racehorse,

and the scene shows him being rubbed down. The horse is

absolutely in the-

In the front register of the painting. It's as though we

could almost reach out and touch him.

And I love the fact also that Hambletonian being so full in

the frame of the painting, the landscape is behind and below

him.

So you look under his his legs, under his stomach to see

Newmarket racecourse, to see the rubbing down house and the

viewing gallery.

And it's as though he's become a sort of colossus, a great sort

of God striding across Newmarket Heath. He's completely

dominating that.

His ears are laid back, his eyes are staring, his nostrils are

flared and he's a fantastic horse in terms of his anatomy,

the gleam of his coat, the power of his muscles, very beautifully

depicted.

ALISON STEADMAN: Stubbs chose to paint the rubbing down painting

first and not the one of Hambletonian actually winning,

the one that Vane-Tempest could have proudly shown off his

version of a gold cup.

But Stubbs wasn't interested in the spectacle of race day.

He was interested in the animals themselves, their personalities

and their stories. When Henry Vane Tempest watched the race at

Newmarket, he saw a tale of a triumphant win worthy of

celebration.

But Stubbs saw something completely different.

MIKE HUGGINS: And the race starts, and they're both

competing from the onset. But it was only in the last four

furlongs, which is half a mile from the finish. When they

really started to fight and they were both fighting like mad!

ALISON STEADMAN: Just yards from the finish line, it's still neck

and neck between Hambletonian and Diamond. The race is too

close to call.

MIKE HUGGINS: Both jockeys were doing everything they could to

get over the line. Buckle on Hambletonian, then there’s

Fitzpatrick on Diamond and they were both doing everything they

could to win.

ALISON STEADMAN: And finally, in the last few strides,

Hambletonian inches ahead and wins by a neck.

Instead of Hambletonian triumphant win in front of

cheering crowds in Stubbs' painting, we see the horse

behind the scenes suffering after running a long and hard

race.

MIKE HUGGINS: In those days, everything you can do to win

means heavy spurring, heavy whipping. Both sides of both

horses will be severely damaged.

ALISON STEADMAN: A writer for the sporting magazine at the

time commented, “Both horses were very much cut with the whip

and severely goaded with the spur but particularly

Hambletonian, he was shockingly goaded. ”

MIKE HUGGINS: There was no need to whip or spur a horse.

The problem was that sometimes these finishes were very close

and both riders really needed to win. Now, when both riders

really needed to win, anything went. And that was not seen as

bad by most people at the time.

There was an early animal rights group, but it was marginal in

society. At that time, gamblers would have expected the jockey

to do whatever had to be done and the horse was almost

immaterial.

The horse was the horse. The bet was the bet. And the bet was

more important than the horse.

ALISON STEADMAN: Stubbs is at pains to capture the physical

toil Hambletonian has just been through.

FRANCES BAILEY: Interestingly, Stubbs has chosen not to show

the marks of the spurs or the whip, but it's his- The flatness

of his neck. He's not standing there with his head up.

He's drained and his head is down and he's gasping for

breath. His mouth is open, his eyes are wide, his ears are

back. He's not a happy horse. And you can see that. You can

see that agitation.

So this is the embodiment of the horse as a sentient being, the

horse with feelings, with emotions, who works brilliantly

with people, but who sometimes people abuse.

And what comes across for me is- is Stubbs empathy for this

fantastic beast, for this very sensitive emotional animal that

has tried its hardest, has done his best, has won an enormous

race, has put everything into it. And actually all the honour

is due to him, not to the owner.

ALISON STEADMAN: We don't know exactly what Sir Henry thought

when he saw the painting, but we get the impression that he was

pretty angry.

FRANCES BAILEY: There's been quite a bit of speculation as to

why Sir Henry Vane-Tempest was not happy and was not prepared

to pay for the painting when it was finished.

And something went badly wrong and nobody quite knows what it

was. But Stubbs, who is owed 300 guineas for the paintings, had

to take Vane-Tempest to court to get the money and the really

frustrating thing is that the court records don't survive.

So we don't know what the arguments were on both sides. So

there's uncertainty about precisely what Henry

Vane-Tempest didn't like'Hambletonian, rubbing

down'.

He did eventually pay for it. But the second painting has

disappeared, if it was ever finished. And that would be

wonderful if somebody could find that in their attic.

I believe this painting deserves to be one of our National Trust

125 treasures, because it encapsulates in so many ways

what we're about. It's about people, about relationships.

It's about the countryside and rural sports.

But more than anything, it's a brilliant painting, and it's

exceptional in its portrayal of this amazing racehorse. And the

way in which he has portrayed Hambletonian in this particular

situation is so emotionally engaging that for me, that is

the real treasure of this painting.

JACK GLOVER: Thank you for listening to this episode of the

National Trust Podcast. To find more episodes and to find our

mini series, go to nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts or

you can search for National Trust in your favourite podcast

app.

We've also included a few links about 125 Treasures and other

National Trust books, which you can find in our show notes.

We'll be back soon with a new episode. But for now, from me,

Jack Glover. Goodbye.