The Baronetcy of Hastings began in 1665, and became a Marquessate in 1816. The 4th Marquess of Hastings inherited the title as a child and came of age in 1863, and now that he was in full charge of the family fortunes, he set about blowing it on racehorses, betting and mixing in the wrong company.
4 March 1864 saw the first Hastings Stakes, a three mile hunter chase at the Ashby-de-la-Zouch meeting in Leicestershire. The Marquis was one of the stewards at this, one of his local tracks. His horse Emperor ran second.
That year he created a scandal that was front-page news. The story of him and his best friend Henry Chaplin’s love for the same woman, Lady Florence Paget, is well known. While betrothed to the wealthy but comparatively dull Chaplin, Lady Florence continued to be courted by Hastings, and she succumbed to his persuasive charms. On the pretext of completing shopping for her wedding dress, she went into an Oxford Street department store, walked straight through it and met Hastings outside the back door. He or a friend was waiting to whisk her away to St George’s Church, Hanover Square, where they were married an hour later.
Chaplin, humiliated, threw himself into racing and gambling. The irritation caused by the pair’s rivalry for Florence was nurtured by their frequent proximity on racecourses to watch their horses run, and the desire of each to see his own horse beat that of his enemy. Hastings, even though he’d won Florence, was an ungrateful winner.
Chaplin backed his horse Hermit for the 1867 Derby. Hastings, with no Derby horse of his own, laid huge sums against Hermit, driven by his emotions rather than through any sound logical reason why the horse should not be good enough. Hermit had broken a blood vessel not long before the Derby. A 50/1 bet of £100 to win £5,000 was taken on Hermit for the Derby, probably stood by Hastings, who stood to win a tidy sum if Hermit lost, or indeed failed to run.
To general astonishment tender treatment from Hermit’s trainer enabled Hermit to recovered sufficiently to get to Epsom, and after a horrible snowy morning and a hailstorm which delayed the start, the race got under way and Hermit won.
To honour his betting commitments Hastings had to sell his horses and estates, worth about £500,000 then.
At Stamford races in July of that year Chaplin gave 100 guineas towards a new race, the Ryhall for two-year-olds. It was his local track, and he was a steward. Hastings responded by sponsoring a race in his name, also for two-year-olds, but could only put up 50 guineas. They attracted four and two runners respectively. Hastings had the consolation of two short-priced winners and some lumpy bets being landed, but this did little to stem his financial decline.
Humiliated even more than Chaplin, he turned to drink and recklessly gambled away his remaining funds, aided by the hangers-on that always cluster round a naïve young man with more money than sense. In 1868 Hastings died, a broken man, aged only 26. He left no heir, so there was no 5th Marquess.
Lady Florence remarried in 1870. Henry Chaplin married another Florence and became a successful politician, but he too had to sell the family estate to pay his debts. He died in the autumn of 1922. It cannot be a coincidence that a Hastings Plate appeared at Newmarket’s next Guineas meeting. Eventually it became a race for maidens but kept its place in the calendar until 2004. A number of other people called Hastings have had races up and down the country since then, but there was only one Harry Hastings.
Hastings races at Newmarket were run off and on until a sequence of maiden stakes culminated on May 2004.
Sources include The Pocket Venus (Henry Blyth)