“At Goodwood, a similar active policy was pursued; no person, being notoriously a defaulter upon bets on horse racing, would be permitted to ‘assist’ at the Meeting. A contumelious defaulter having obtained admission to the Enclosure, he received peremptory orders to quit; and the example set by the Stewards of Ascot and Goodwood was promptly taken up by the better class of country Meetings; and notices were posted, that if any person notoriously in default, as to either forfeits, or bets, gained admittance, he should be peremptorily expelled. At Doncaster, it was requested that all parties who had claims for bets, would not fail to notify the same to Mr Butterfield, Land Steward to the Corporation, prior to the races, at his office, or at the Grand Stand. Lord Eglinton, who had taken a prominent part in the endeavour to stamp out this evil, wrote to the Town Clerk: ‘It gives me much pleasure to find that the Corporation of Doncaster have passed the Resolutions. Defaulters have become so numerous, and so audacious in their proceedings, that it is absolutely necessary that the strongest measures should be adopted against them.’ The Corporation of Doncaster, at their meeting, when his Lordship’s letter was read, resolved, unanimously, that the Town Clerk be requested, immediately, to confer with the proprietors of the Betting Rooms, and that Lord Eglinton be permitted to purify those rooms, as well as the Stand and Enclosure.
“But to the influence and exertions of Lord George Bentinck, the ‘legitimates’ owed the clearance of the Turf from the hordes of welshers and other non-payers that infested it. This ‘pleasing reform of the Turf’ was brought about by his active measures; and it was admitted, that had he not persevered to the utmost, even his powerful influence would have been blighted, and the host of rotten sheep left to infect the sound constitution of the remaining flock. But such was the effect of the sharp remedies employed, that, for some time after, it was safe to make a bet with any man whom you might meet in the Betting Ring at respectable Race Meetings, so effectually was the Turf ridded of the pests that had infested it.”
Probably, the greatest defaulter of modern times was a man named Dwyer, who kept a cigar shop in St Martin’s Lane. He, generally, gave a point or two more than the current odds at Tattersall’s, and, in 1851, he was doing, by far, the largest business of any “list man” in London. Owing to the promptitude and regularity of his payments, he gained a high reputation for solvency, and not only retained and increased his clientèle among the half-crown and shilling public, but had attracted the custom even of men of good standing in the ring. His humble patrons believed him to be every whit as safe as “Leviathan” Davis, and their confidence was largely shared by racing men of a higher calibre.
All went well till the Chester Meeting of 1851, the Cup being, then, the greatest betting handicap in the Calendar; so much so that, in that year it was calculated that upwards of a million sterling changed hands over that one race. Dwyer laid very heavily against the winner Miss Nancy. It had always been his custom to pay up on the day after a great race; and, consequently, at an early hour on Friday, the first of May, crowds of the lucky backers of Nancy made their way to the familiar cigar shop in St Martin’s Lane, to receive their winnings in exchange for the tickets they held. Conceive their consternation when they found the shutters up, and the door closed, with other unmistakable signs that the bank had suspended payment. The news spread fast, and there was soon a mob of some thousands blocking up all the approaches to the cigar shop.
By and by it oozed out that a notice had been fastened to the shutters to the effect that Mr Dwyer would meet his friends and creditors that evening at the White Swan, Chandos Street, in order to make arrangements for discharging the claims against him. Of course, that hostelry was immediately besieged by a clamorous crowd, but the landlord assured them that he knew nothing of Dwyer or his whereabouts—all he could tell them was that, late on the previous evening, two gentlemen, who were perfect strangers to him, had called and engaged his “long-room” for a meeting of Mr Dwyer and his friends on the following day. Meanwhile, the cigar shop had been broken into, and the worst fears of the unfortunate victims were confirmed when they found that every scrap of furniture that was worth anything had been removed from the house during the night. The excitement in London that evening was tremendous—nothing else was talked of among sporting men but Dwyer’s collapse, and it was afterwards found that he had bolted with £25,000 of the public’s money. The rogue was never found.
The largest sum ever won by a horse was made by Donovan, who, in his lifetime, carried off stakes to the value of £55,354, 13s.; but the largest amount of “public money” ever won without betting by an owner in a single season is £73,858, 10s., won by the Duke of Portland in 1889; whilst Lord Falmouth, who did not bet, won nearly £212,000 in eleven years, from 1873 to 1883, and in 1884 he sold his whole stud for at least £150,000. Count Lagrange also won in stakes in five years, from 1876 to 1880, £73,000.
These sums, with the exception of the Duke of Portland’s winnings, were made before the era of enormous stakes had begun; and, according to a writer (Rapier) in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in 1892, 2559 horses ran flat races for £486,556, which sum was won by 947 competitors. These figures give us some insight into the enormous interests involved in horse racing, entirely leaving out the millions which must change hands in betting.