Henry Arthur Mornington Wellesley, 3rd Lord Cowley, was born on January 14, 1866. He rode his first winner on a horse named Pollacky, whom he also owned, in the Beaufort Hunt Cup at the Beaufort Hunt National Hunt fixture at Sherston in 1887. It was an appropriate place for him to register his first success because he had been associated with the Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt from boyhood.
Initially, Lord Cowley confined himself to riding horses owned by himself or friends at National Hunt meetings in his immediate neighbourhood. However, his racing colours of white, scarlet and brown hooped sleeves, scarlet collar, brown cap, gradually began to make their appearance at more important fixtures around the country and he rode winners for Sir Humphrey de Trafford.
Lord Cowley was part owner of Cloister when that horse finished second to Father O’Flynn in the 1892 Grand National. However, Cloister was subsequently sold to Charles Duff (later Sir Charles Assheton-Smith) for whom he won the race the following year.
His finest performance in the saddle came at the two-day Keele Park meeting on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 October, 1896, when he had five rides and won on them all – a first day double and a second day treble. He landed the first race on day one, the Burslem Steeplechase on the favourite, Mervyn, winning by a length and a half. He then won the Stoke National Hunt Flat Race on Tibocrat in a canter by 20 lengths. On the second day of the meeting he won the first race, the Butterton Steeplechase, on the odds-on favourite Orphan Boy and followed up in the second race, the Cloughs Selling Handicap Steeplechase, on the even-money favourite Spoonbait. He ended the day by winning the last race, the Novices’ Steeplechase, on his first day scorer Mervyn, who started at 7-4 on.
However, while that was a career highlight, he gained his most important success on Morello in the Birmingham Grand Annual Handicap Chase on January 29, 1898.
Morello was the best two-mile chaser he ever rode. Following that Birmingham Grand Annual victory, Lord Cowley won five more races on him that year, four over fences and one of the Flat, as follows: 15 February, Trafford Park Handicap Chase, Manchester; 4 March, Sandown Open Handicap Chase, Sandown; 15 March, Derbyshire Handicap Chase, Derby; 23 April, Criterion Chase, Sandown; 6 July, Andover Stakes, Stockbridge.
On February 10, 1899 Lord Cowley won the two-mile St James’s Chase on the hard-pulling Chair of Kildare. Later that month, he rode a winner on both days of the Warwick meeting, aboard Bravo in the County Hurdle on the first day and Dead Level in the National Hunt Flat Race on the second day. He finished second in the National Hunt Chase, run that year at Hurst Park, on Triton, winner of the inaugural Lady Dudley Cup, on what was that horse’s only race outside of point-to-points.
He rode his last winner on the 5-4 on favourite Beyreuth in the Devonshire Handicap Hurdle at Derby on March 15, 1899. He finished second on him next time out in a mile-and-a-half flat handicap at Croxton Park on April 6. Eight days later he had one of his final rides when unplaced on Chair of Kildare in the Castle Plate Steeplechase at Leopardstown.
Eleven stone was the lowest weight at which Lord Cowley could ride and this naturally curtailed the number of opportunities available to him. However, he nonetheless enjoyed a successful career between 1887 and 1899.
Having retired from riding in races, he was regularly seen out hunting with the Quorn and the neighbouring packs.
Lord Cowley died on January 15, 1919, one day after his 53rd birthday.
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