A Bedford Collage Trial

Provenace: with N.R. Omell, 6 Duke Street, St Jame's, London S.W.1.

Estimate: $20,000 - 30,000.

In 1904 The Badminton Magazine illustrated this painting in
full color, a rare occurrence at the time. With it, they published
this description: “The close connection that has always existed
between this magazine and Cheveley is generally known, and it
has seemed [e]specially appropriate to give here a copy of Mr.
G. D. Giles’s picture A Bedford Cottage Trial. It was painted just
ten years ago for the late Colonel McCalmont, and given by him
to his friend Major Beatty, on whose dining-room wall it now
hangs, a cherished memento. Colonel McCalmont and Captain
Machell on their ponies are in the corner of the painting, which
few readers of these pages will want to be told represents the
historic Limekilns — the ‘walking ground,’ on the side of the
road opposite to the expanse of always elastic turf on which
the work is done; for however hard the ground may be on the
other side of the plantation, on the Limekilns the going is always
good. That Mr. Giles was happy in his portraiture the testimony
of a very youthful critic proved. Jewitt’s little boy, then about
eight years old, went to see the painting in Mr. Giles studio, and
at once exclaimed, ‘Oh! Father, look — there is Whisperer, and
that is Isinglass, and then comes Suspender,’ and he went on to
name several more — much, needless to say, to the gratification
of the artist, for Whisperer is the first of the lot, and the others
follow as the child described. The animals in the middle of the
composition are, it will be seen, being prepared for their gallop.
The ewe-necked filly that Tom Loates, in his shirtsleeves, has
just mounted and has turned to go down is Be Cannie. The
boy who is kneeling to put on his spurs is about to be put up
on Ruwenzori, who was an invaluable trial horse, never telling
his trainer wrong. The black on the left-hand side, with lifted
near hind leg, is Throatlash. Jewitt is on his pony, and the slim
youth behind him is George Chaloner, who frequently rode for
the stable. The rather disappointing Hautbrion, together with
Buckingham, the savage Kilsallaghan (who, however was a lamb
in the hands of the amazing horse dentist Loeffler), and others
of more or less note are included, one of them being Veau d’Or,
a colt so named because his owner had been vastly amused at a
description of himself by an ever ill-conditioned writer on Turf
affairs, who (knowing nothing of Captain McCalmont, as he
then was) told his readers that the multi-millionaire was a golden
calf who would speedily be devoured by his quasi-friends. A
Bedford Cottage Trial represents a thoroughly characteristic scene of training at Newmarket.