"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.