the word

[calimac]

As long as the entire media, even me, is writing about horseracing just because there's some movie out about it, I should pass on to you my favorite comment on the subject, made by Lord Salisbury, the unusually level-headed man who served as British Prime Minister in the 1880s and 1890s. With little sympathy for the more traditionally aristocratic priorities of his political associates, he complained on one occasion, "Hartington is at Newmarket and all political arrangements have to be hung up till some quadruped has run faster than some other quadruped."

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Is Lord Salisbury the one I'm thinking of who was interested in horse racing until he determined that some horse will always run faster than some other horse, and that was all he needed to know about the subject?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a variant version of the same line. I've seen this version in several books, and am quoting it directly from a letter cited in Patrick Jackson's biography of Hartington in Google Books.