But with the rundown racing interests - "just a handful of very bad animals" - his son also inherited his father's apricot racing colours, recommended to the eighth baron by the artist Augustus John because they would show up well against a turf-green background.
Take a turf of green grass, and lay it to the navel, and let it lie till you find ease; the green side must be laid next to the belly.
But the turf is green and healthy, jarringly at odds with the surrounding dusty streets and industrial estate.
It was utterly compelling, with bodies intermittently littering the lush green turf.
"It hasn't always been the richest turf for the Green party," a party spokesman said.
They gawked at the players kicking balls around the green turf, but were silent.
Close by, a pattern of rectangular, straw-coloured stripes had developed on the otherwise green turf.
The dancers scatter and coalesce on patches of bright green turf, their kneepad-clad legs battered by rough surfaces.
Smooth green turf now covers a golf course abandoned half-built when the property bubble burst in 2007.
The newly built school was set in a sea of green turf, which headteacher, Mandy Christopher, vowed to improve.
When it was new, it would have been visible for miles: a towering ring of chalk blazing white against the green turf.
