Jason beating Spectator, Rover, Brilliant, Whistlejacket, Venture and Stately at Newmarket

Jason was a grey colt foaled by Standard out of a mare by the Beaufort Arabian. He was bred in 1749 by Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 5^th Bt. (1726-1804), later 1^st Baron Scarsdale, and from 1756 owned by Sir James Lowther, 1^st Earl of Lonsdale (1736-1802). Jason was one of the most successful racehorses of the period; between 1753 and 1760, he ran in eighteen races and won fourteen. The inscription identifies the race as the Great Subscription at Newmarket, where Jason won in October 1754. However, due to the horses identified it is more likely that Sartorius depicted the Jockey Club Plate at Newmarket in May 1757, where Jason was recorded to have beaten Spectator, owned by Thomas Panton (see lot 195), Jessamy, Brilliant, Forester and Whistlejacket (W. Pick, The Turf Register and Sportsman & Breeder’s Stud-Book, 1803, I, p. 145). By 1757, Whistlejacket was owned by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (1730-1782). The chestnut stallion is perhaps one of the best-known racehorses in the world, thanks to George Stubbs’s majestic portrait of 1762, commissioned by Rockingham and now in the National Gallery, London.