GULLY AND RIDSDALE.
"Ah, sir, you should 'ave been a-going racing when John Gully and his pal Ridsdale was a-carrying all before 'em; them was the days for sensations and excitements. There's not the same go about the business now as there used to was. Bless you, sir, I can mind when pails of champagne wine was stood by winners, and stable-lads turned up their noses at it. I was in a racing stable in them days, where some of the gents as had 'osses in it thought nothing of giving me a sov. for a-holding of their 'acks for ten minutes. Ah, sir, them were the days for stablemen."
So said to me an ancient horsey-like man in "Hannah's year" at Doncaster. I had seen him in the morning as "the Baron's" filly was led on to the course to do a little exercise, when, touching his cap politely, he said: "I seen you here last year, sir, when you got the big hodds agin 'Awthornden. I hope as you'll back the mare, sir, she'll win easy enough; but you won't get no twenty-fives about her, sir, ten to three is the biggest offer; my 'umble advice to you, sir, is to take it; she'll win, sir, as easy as easy." And so she did. After the race was over and I was drawing the pony I had backed her to win, there stood the retired stableman eagerly looking on. "It's come off, sir, as I said; she's a fine mare. Thank you, sir, you're very polite; half sovs. are scarce with me now, sir; but in the days when Gully and Ridsdale were a-flourishing at Newmarket, I've seen when I had plenty of 'em. Take my 'umble advice again, sir, and put all your winnings on Corisandy for the big 'andicap; she's another certainty, she is, sir."
And that is my preface to the following little sketch of Gully and Ridsdale, who were among the chief racing adventurers of their time. Both men were of humble origin. Ridsdale was born in York, and earned a small wage in his early days as helper in a livery stable, from which he was promoted to be a groom to the first Earl of Durham, then Mr. Lambton. Robert Ridsdale after a time, having given up service, made his appearance on the turf as an adventurer, and from the first success appears to have attended his efforts. He had formed an extensive and profitable acquaintance with many of the northern trainers and jockeys, who at the period, say from 1815 onwards, were busy in the racing world; the sport of kings at the time indicated being in a flourishing condition in the North, where the training stables were crowded with famous horses, the riders of which had earned reputations on the turf. Ridsdale was fortunate, as the saying goes, to get into many of the "good things" of those days, and, judging by the fine establishment he was speedily enabled to set up in the neighbourhood of York, he must, almost at the outset of his turf career, have discovered a way of "making" large sums of money. Among his patrons was the Honourable Edward Petre, who for some years, "in the days when George the Fourth was king," enjoyed the favours of fortune on the racecourse, having won the St. Leger on four different occasions, three of his wins being in consecutive years.
John Gully was a racing man of great notoriety, and became a Member of Parliament. In his earlier years he is known to have played the parts of butcher, prize-fighter, publican, hell-keeper, and bookmaker, carrying on at one time a gigantic business in the latter capacity. Gully was a pugilist in those days when boxing was most thought of, and when fighting men were patronised by persons of honour and respectability. As a boxer, Gully was a man of indomitable courage, as plucky in the roped arena as his partner Ridsdale was in the hunting-field. It was while carrying on business as a publican that Gully saw his way to fortune in the betting ring; like some other shrewd persons, he early discovered that "backing" horses was an unprofitable avocation, having come to the conclusion that the chief gains of the turf remained in the hands of the men who laid the odds. "Backers," as they are called, go down before the bookmakers like so many ninepins, whilst the layers of the odds to all comers continue to stand up and grow rich.
Impressed with that view of the situation, Gully speedily became a professional betting man, or "leg," as such persons were then termed, and, by paying intelligent attention to business, met with prompt and extraordinary success. He commenced at a fortunate time—just, indeed, as betting was beginning to be recognised as a business, and when men were awakening more and more to the fact that it was better for them to deal with a professional layer of the odds all round than to make bets with each other. Gully speedily attracted attention in the ring. Gentlemen who had taken notice of his native shrewdness and capacity for figures entrusted him with commissions to back their horses, so that, in a manner, fortune was thrust upon him, the many secrets he became possessed of in this line of business enabling him to work in a powerful light, whilst his less fortunate brethren of the ring had to carry on their betting work pretty much in the dark.
The commissions with which he was so frequently entrusted showed Gully what were the expectations of owners, and not only which horses might win, but also some as well which were sure to be beaten; because on the turf there was then, as there is now, two kinds of "commissions"—one to back a given horse, or it might be two or three horses, for the same event, the other to lay against animals meant to lose. With "such dispositions of things" in his favour, he is a poor hand at the business who cannot, when the struggle is over, show a winning balance. The days of Gully were those of heavy betting, so far as individual speculation was concerned; that is to say, there might then be a hundred men on the turf who betted to stakes of hundreds or thousands; but at the present time, although individual bets are not perhaps made to such large amounts, the number of persons who bet is as hundreds to one to what the number was when John Gully was a prominent person in the ring.
At the "period" referred to, say from about 1818 to 1840, race-horses were less numerous than they are at present, and bookmakers, moreover, were not so plentiful as now; but most of them managed to do a good business and to put money in their purses. Gully, gathering experience day by day, was soon able to play a prominent part in the heavy speculations which formed a feature of the turf in those times; and whenever he thought any commission entrusted to him was a really good one—that is to say, as denoting the chance of the horse to win—he followed the lead of his employer, and by doing so often won considerable sums; whilst if he knew, as he frequently did, that a horse was sure to be beaten, he would spiritedly lay the odds against its chance of winning. It is recorded that on one occasion he was engaged to back two horses in a race to win, and, along with a confederate, he had five to lay against; the two which he backed to win ran first and second, the others, as had been "arranged," came in a long way behind the winner. A few chances of that kind soon bring grist to a betting man's mill.
By the year 1827 Gully's business had so flourished that he was able to purchase for £4,200 (then a large sum to pay for a horse) the winner of that year's Blue Ribbon of the turf—Mameluke, the property of Lord Jersey. The horse was bought with a view to winning the St. Leger, and the transactions made by Gully on behalf of his purchase afford a glimpse of the betting figures of that period. As soon as the bargain had been effected between Lord Jersey and himself, Gully requested that it should not be made known till he had obtained a good opportunity of backing the horse for the great race of September (the St. Leger), which he was enabled to do at Ascot. At that famous race meeting he accepted the odds of 10 to 1 against his horse to the tune of £1,000, thus standing to win £10,000 if his horse should prove victorious at Doncaster. Not contented, however, with that considerable speculation, Mr. Gully made several other bets, as, for instance, one that Mameluke would beat ten horses (in the St. Leger), which horses he at once named; likewise that his colt would beat a lot of nine horses in the same race—these he also, of course, named. All three bets were made for the same amounts, namely, £10,000 to £1,000, and in the end they had to be paid by Mr. Gully, as, unfortunately for him, the name of Matilda, the horse which won the St. Leger of 1827, was written in both lists, so that after the St. Leger had been run he found he had a sum of £3,000 to pay, every penny of which was duly handed over—two-thirds of it to Crockford—on the day of reckoning.
The struggle for that year's St. Leger was no sooner over than it was alleged there had been foul play in connection with the race, and there is great probability that the allegation was not unfounded, and that Mameluke was "prevented" from winning the race—a species of "turf tactics" not unknown even at present, and occasionally resorted to when other modes of "getting at" a horse, or his trainer, or jockey, do not prove successful. The chicanery of the turf is varied in its action: when the animal itself can be "doctored," that of course makes certain the "nobbled" horse will lose; a pail of water—"just a real hearty drink" (as a well-known northern trainer used to say)—given to the animal a little time before the race falls to be run, generally, but not always, ensures defeat. Other means of "doctoring" a racehorse are sometimes resorted to, it being always a safer plan to make the horse "right" than to depend upon a jockey to "pull it," as riders whose evil intention has been suspected have been changed at the last moment, and the horse, being entrusted to the guidance of an honest jockey, may win instead of losing the race. In the case of Matilda, it has been stated that the starter was the guilty party—that, in fact, he had been bribed to give his signal to "go" when it would be least advantageous to Mr. Gully's horse, which, being a restless, irritable animal, contributed much to the tactics of the opposition by its fractiousness at the starting-post.
The winner of the race was the property of Mr. Petre, who has been mentioned as being a patron of Robert Ridsdale, and in all probability that person was the engineer of the opposition to Gully's horse. The two ultimately became partners, or "confederates," in a good many of the turf events of their day; but it is quite clear they were not acting in concert at Doncaster on the occasion of the St. Leger of 1827. At what date a formal partnership—if any such ever existed—was entered upon by Ridsdale and Gully is not known, but it is more than likely they had on some occasions "worked the oracle" together for their mutual advantage before the period of their partnership. Ridsdale had become a man of means, lived in good style, and was at one time possessed of a hundred horses, keeping up a liberal establishment. Considering his beginnings, he was apparently a man of considerable culture; he possessed some of the best books of the period, and also read, or at any rate purchased, all the popular magazines of his day, his living-rooms being usually littered with newspapers and ephemeral prints and pamphlets of the period. Well-trained servants waited on his guests; the productions of his cook attracted the attention of his brethren of the hunt; his claret was of the best, so was his port; whilst his conversation was always attractive, and his tongue fluent and persuasive. He rode, of course, to hounds—indeed, hunting was a passion with him; he had a string of well-bred hunters from which he derived by occasional sales a handsome profit; he bred and trained at his place other horses as well, and was never without a hundred or two with which to accommodate any of his friends who had run short of money.
There can be no question but that Robert Ridsdale had a finger in several of the dirty pies that were cooked when he was active on the turf. Many a well-planned victory (and even better-managed loss) is said to have been due to his busy brain. His machinations were far-reaching, some of them taking a long time to mature; but when such events came off they generally resulted in the right way for Ridsdale, who was reputed at the time (1824) to have planned a way of winning a very large sum of money over the race for the St. Leger of that year.
The story of "Jerry's victory" has been often told in turf circles and sporting journals. I shall, however, give it here in few words, as an example of racing fraud which unfortunately has, over and over again, proved successful. Jerry, the winner of the St. Leger of 1824, was the property of a Mr. Gascoigne, a well-known sportsman of his day; and the horse, ridden by Benjamin Smith, a famous jockey of his era, beat twenty-two competitors in the great struggle for the Blue Ribbon of the North. Jerry was to have been piloted in the race by one Edwards, a horseman of that time, but for good and sufficient reasons he was at the eleventh hour superseded in the saddle by Benjamin Smith, as will presently be shown. Croft, the trainer of the horse, was exceedingly confident of the ability of Jerry to win the St. Leger, and did not keep his opinion a secret; but, whilst the animal was being wound up for the occasion and was known to be doing all that was required of him on his training ground, pleasing both the owner and his friends by the style in which he did his morning gallops, he was apparently an undoubted victim of the "legs," who never tired of betting the odds against his chance of winning the race. All comers were readily accommodated, so that in the course of a few weeks, to the great astonishment of his trainer and owner, tens of thousands were industriously laid against Jerry's chance of winning.
That Ridsdale was the undoubted engineer of the opposition was in due time discovered; and that he had found out, as he thought, a way of making Mr. Gascoigne's colt a "safe one" came to be known. The trainer of the horse, as the fierce market opposition to it progressed, naturally enough became suspicious of foul play, and in consequence watched the course of the betting with feverish anxiety, but only to find, as the day for the decision of the race waxed nearer, that this colt was being more and more "peppered" by a certain clique of betting men. Croft could discover nothing wrong at home—all his people appeared to be acting an honest part. The anxiety of the perplexed trainer was all the greater, because by his recommendation the owner of Jerry and many of his friends had backed the horse to win big stakes. The opposition to a horse's chance of winning an important race which finds voice in the betting ring is usually of great significance, because shrewd men do not bet against a horse to lose thousands without knowing what they are about.
In the case of the opposition to the St. Leger hero of 1824, the trainer of Jerry was happily able, almost at the eleventh hour, to solve the vexatious problem. Having visited the subscription rooms on the Monday before the race, and listened once more to the babble of opposition to his colt, Croft was proceeding after a long walk to his quarters, when, as he passed a toll on his road, he witnessed the arrival of a carriage drawn by four horses, and while the vehicle was pulled up for a moment he recognised its occupants. They were Ridsdale and Edwards the jockey, the latter being engaged to ride the St. Leger candidate of Mr. Gascoigne. The sight of these two persons arriving at Doncaster in the same post-chaise acted as a revelation to the trainer. In one moment he saw in his mind's eye the source of all the monetary opposition to the horse. The jockey, it was obvious enough, had been "got at," and the animal was destined to be "pulled," whilst the mechanism of the robbery was undoubtedly planned by the man in the post-chaise, Robert Ridsdale.
Croft acted with decision. Next morning at breakfast time he waited on his employer, in order to tell him what he had witnessed and what his suspicions were. Mr. Gascoigne at once agreed to his trainer's proposition to put up another jockey than Edwards on the horse, and Benjamin Smith was very quietly engaged for the duty. This matter was well managed, and till Jerry was saddled for the contest no one expected that the jockey would be changed, as Edwards had been dressed for his work an hour before the time set for the race. When Benjamin Smith was seen on the back of Mr. Gascoigne's colt consternation seized the betting men; those of them who a few minutes previously had been loudest in their offers against Jerry now turned round and began to back the horse with all their might, so as to be able, in the event of its success, to lighten their load of liabilities. Jerry won the race by a distance of two lengths, thus bearing out his trainer's high opinion of his ability. The horse which started favourite (in the betting) for the St. Leger of 1824 was Streatham, the odds offered against it being about 4½ to 1. Brutandorf was second favourite in the betting at 6 to 1; the price of Jerry, at the start for the race, is given as being 9 to 1; but before it became known that Smith would ride, 16 to 1 had been vigorously shouted in the betting ring; 7½ to 1, however, was the real starting price. It is believed that Gully laid a large amount of money against the winner, probably, therefore, he was in the secret of the opposition to Jerry, whether he was at that time acting as the "pal" of Ridsdale or not.
The partnership between them was not formed, it is believed, till about the year 1829-30. The two men were at all events intimately associated in the winning of the Derby of 1832 by St. Giles, and the winning of the St. Leger of the same year by Margrave. Curious tales have been told regarding the victory of St. Giles; twenty-two horses contested the race, in which Margrave (winner of the St. Leger) was a competitor, whilst Ridsdale also had a colt running in the race; but St. Giles, which started first favourite, won very easily. The winner was bred by Ridsdale at Merton, his place at York, and it was whispered at the time that the horse was a year older than it should have been as a Derby winner; in other words, that it was four, instead of three years old. But, to use the words of an outspoken turfite, "That would have been nothing for such men to do: Ridsdale could have managed such a bit of turf business easily, being a perfect master of the art of racing roguery." No objection was, however, made to St. Giles on the ground of fraud, but a caveat was lodged on the ground of wrongful description in the entering of the horse for the race, which in the Derby and some other classic events, as is well known, takes place when the colt is a yearling. On the case of misdescription being referred for decision to three gentlemen of turf celebrity and honour, their verdict was given in favour of Ridsdale; it was in the name of the latter that the horse had been entered for the Derby.
Extraordinary revelations have occasionally been made of the amounts won by the confederates by means of St. Giles' victory; both of them, it is certain, were large gainers by the success of their horse, in favour of which the "oracle" is stated to have been so industriously "worked" that not more than three of the horses running in that year's Derby were really trying to win; the horse placed third was Trustee, the property of Ridsdale; Margrave, the fourth in the struggle, belonged to Gully, and afterwards won the St. Leger. The winnings of the partners on the Derby were at one time computed at £100,000, £40,000 being Ridsdale's share, the rest falling to Gully. Some aver that the partners quarrelled over the division of the spoil, but that was not the case, as the partnership certainly lasted till after the Doncaster meeting.
Ridsdale was undoubtedly an adept in such arrangements as have been hinted at with reference to the clearing of the path for his horse. In that year's Derby there would probably be half-a-dozen horses which might have proved more or less dangerous to St. Giles; but by some means or other—money, in fact—the owners of these animals, or their trainers or jockeys, would be gained over by the confederacy, at a cost, perhaps, for the half-dozen, of some twenty or five-and-twenty thousand pounds. As a matter of course, St. Giles had been used simply as an instrument of gambling; as a two-year-old, his quality as a race-horse had been hidden by his having undoubtedly been "pulled" in his earlier races, so that when the day of his victory arrived, the odds against his chance might be large enough to make it worth the while of his owner to let him run.
Margrave, the St. Leger winner, as has been stated, ran fourth in the Derby; but probably that horse was good enough to have won the Epsom trophy, had St. Giles not been on duty; but, had it done so, the odds against its winning the St. Leger would not have been anything like 8 to 1, the price quoted at the start for the great Doncaster trophy. By the success of Margrave another large stake was won by the confederates; the amount has been variously estimated at from forty to ninety thousand pounds. Some time after the decision of this event, a quarrel ensued between the partners, which brought their connection with each other to an end.
The affair was somewhat of a cause célèbre in its day, but may be dismissed in a few words. It would appear, from what was made public at the time, that Ridsdale had insinuated he had not received his fair share of the cash won over Margrave, stating that Gully had obtained £12,000 more than he had. Gully, resenting this statement, struck Ridsdale in the hunting-field in a brutal way with his whip; a trial took place at York Assizes, when damages to the extent of £500 were awarded to Ridsdale, who had a large number of sympathisers on his side.
The two men, while their association lasted, effected some bold transactions on what may be called the smaller races of the time, putting large sums in their purses by the exercise of their cunning, or, as it would now be termed, "astuteness." The monetary details of those transactions have never been made public in detail, but were estimated at the time from the extent of the settlements of the partners at Tattersall's, where both men, so far as their credit was concerned, were held in high esteem. One of their intended "good things," which did not come off, was Little Red Rover's attempt to win the Derby of 1830, which was won by a celebrated racer called Priam. Had Red Rover won, the confederates would have pocketed between them the better part of £80,000.
Mr. Gully won the Derby in 1846 with his horse Pyrrhus I., a victory which enabled him to add largely to his bank account. In the same year he was also so fortunate as to win the Oaks with his mare Mendicant, afterwards purchased by the well-known Sir Joseph Hawley, to whom she proved a veritable gold mine, being the dam of a horse which brought to the exchequer of that sporting baronet a sum of £80,000; that animal was Beadsman, who became the sire of Bluegown, another Derby winner, which also brought a large sum—£100,000 it is said—to the coffers of Sir Joseph. Pyrrhus I. was a cheap horse compared with the cost of such cattle at the present time; he was bought by John Day, the well-known trainer, at Doncaster as a yearling, who shared his purchase with Mr. Gully. The Member for Pontefract was lucky in other than turf speculations, by which it has been said he cleared a quarter of a million sterling; he speculated largely in coal-fields, all of which are represented to have proved remunerative.
As time went on the ex-pugilist acquired good manners, and became somewhat more courtly than when he was lessee of a public-house. Gully was hospitable, and although his style was less refined than that of Ridsdale, who "took on no end of polish," his rooms at Newmarket were frequented by the best men on the turf. His dinners were admirably cooked and served; his wines could not be excelled; and he was able to offer all the delicacies of the season to his friends in the same style as if he had been to the manner born. At the ripe age of eighty Gully died, his death taking place at his luxurious seat of Corkin Hall, near Durham. An immense concourse of people attended his funeral, many present being of the rank and fashion of the period.
Ridsdale, after the trial at York, and the severance of his partnership with Gully, began gradually to fall from his high estate. His star had begun to set. His hand, to use a common simile, lost its cunning, and although his journey downhill was once or twice arrested in a pleasant sort of way, the stable loft in which he died was reached at last. Ridsdale's downfall began with the defeat of a horse called Hornsea for the St. Leger of 1835. On the success of this animal he had, so to speak, thrown his last throw—a big stake—and he lost it; Queen of Trumps being first for the St. Leger of that year, the horse supported by Ridsdale only getting second. When the settling day arrived Ridsdale could not "show"—in plain language, he was unable to pay—notwithstanding all the thousands he had won over the victories of St. Giles and Margrave, not less, when bad debts were deducted, probably than £70,000. In order to do his best for his creditors, Ridsdale ordered all his possessions to the hammer; his horses and oxen, his plate and pictures, his furniture and wines, were all offered to the highest bidders.
Fortune, however, had still a smile or two in store for him, one of which may here be noticed. At the Merton sale there was offered a mean-looking foal which no one would look at, but in due time that same animal, then known as Bloomsbury, won the Derby of 1839, for which he had been entered and trained under the superintendence of William, a brother of Robert Ridsdale. Again the breath of rumour got to work; the winner of the race, it was asserted, was not the horse which it was represented to be, but another animal a year older. An objection lodged against the horse, not on that ground, but because of misdescription, was overruled by the stewards; but Mr. Fulwar Craven, owner of the second horse, claimed the stakes and raised an action for payment, in which, however, he was defeated. Bloomsbury never ran as a two-year-old, the Derby being his first race. As "Wildrake" says, in his "Pictorial Gallery of English Race-horses": "He was a most fortunate horse—though most unfortunate to his owners and backers. He won the Derby and a lawsuit. He caused the non-settlement of a settlement. He embroiled Lords and Commons, enriched poor men, impoverished wealth, and made all the world stare when their eyes were opened."
Ridsdale, as has been indicated, lost his nerve; with confidence in himself gone, he forsook the old haunts where he had been so well received, he shunned his former intimates, and gradually became so reduced in purse as to be without a lodging. In the end he was found dead in a stable loft at Newmarket, with three-halfpence in his pocket.