[11] The couple's racing activities were based in Newmarket in Suffolk, headquarters of the British horseracing industry, originally at the Bedford Lodge stables, on Bury Road, under the trainer Joe Dawson.

[12] Sefton Lodge was a large house, with nearby stables backing onto Long-Hill Gallops, built in 1872 by the prominent racehorse owner C.J.Lefrevre "in a picturesque Italian style".

[13] King William III of the Netherlands (1817–1890) held an annual horserace at Dorn in Holland, which was won by Stirling-Crawfurd with the same horse in the years 1851 and 1852.

For this feat the king awarded him an elaborate silver trophy, a centrepiece for a dining table, in the form of a lady hawking on horseback with a hawk-handler at her side.

[18] Three years later in 1886, in his memory his widow built St Agnes's Church in Bury Road, to the immediate north-east of Sefton Lodge, in the churchyard of which his body was re-buried[19] in 1888, beneath a large cross,[20] as is inscribed on his gravestone.

It is said to have the richest, most opulent 19th century interior in Suffolk,[21] with unique examples of mosaic, tiling, stained glass and featuring a white marble bas-relief reredos showing the assumption of the virgin martyr St Agnes, holding a lamb and being lifted up to Heaven by angels from the Colosseum in Rome, the place of her martyrdom.

The following stories are told: The weather during one summer had been atrocious which suited the duchess, if no-one else, as she had a runner in the St. Leger which had any sort of chance only on very soft ground.

She took him to one side afterwards and told him: “Do that again, and I’ll sack you.” The horse did not win, but the vicar kept his job..[22] The duchess was popular in the racing world, but had an acid tongue at times.