As early as 1823 this sporting peer had created a sensation at the Star Inn at Doncaster, by offering to lay 25 to 1 in hundreds against Brutandorf for the St. Leger, afterwards repeating the offer in thousands.
On the St. Leger of 1824 Jerry won him some £17,000, but three years later he lost £27,000, Mr. Gully's much-fancied Derby winner, Mameluke, being beaten by Matilda. The victory of this filly, which was very popular with the Yorkshire crowd, is commemorated at Stapleton Park, near Pontefract—where her owner, the Hon. E. Petre, lived—by a chiming clock placed over the stables, known as the "Matilda clock," which is appropriately surmounted by a "race-horse weathercock."
Lord George Bentinck is said to have won no less than £100,000 by betting in one year (1845), but his racing expenses amounted to an enormous sum. He won £12,000 by the victory of Cotherstone in the Derby, and it is said would have profited to the extent of some £135,000 had Gaper proved the winner of that classic race. His successes as an owner, though considerable, hardly compensated him for the immense amount of time, thought, and money which he expended upon racing matters. Crucifix, it is true, won the Two Thousand, the One Thousand, and the Oaks in 1840, but Lord George never won the Derby, though if he had not parted with his stud in 1846 he would in all probability have done so, for Mr. Mostyn in his purchase acquired Surplice, who became the winner in 1848. The victory much agitated his former owner when he heard of it.
Sir Joseph Hawley was a very heavy better in his time, though at the end of his Turf career he began a crusade against the evils of plunging—nevertheless, not very long before, he had taken £40,000 to £600 about each of the fillies he had entered for the Derby.
The enormous bets made by the ill-timed Marquis of Hastings are notorious. Now and then he hit the Ring very hard—when Lecturer won the Cesarewitch, for instance, he was a gainer of no less than £75,000—and his Turf winnings in stakes were also considerable for two or three years. In 1864 they amounted to £10,000, in 1866 to £12,000, and in 1867 to over £30,000. Hermit's Derby, however, in the same year is said to have cost him £140,000; and even had Marksman, who was second, won, he would have lost £120,000.
This spendthrift nobleman was anything but shrewd as a plunger. He had made his book so badly that, though he stood to lose heavily, he would only have profited to the extent of a few thousands had Vauban, which was his best horse, been first past the post. In 1868 the Marquis, a broken-down, ruined man, passed to his grave at the early age of twenty-six.
There was very heavy betting in the old days. Davies, the celebrated bookmaker, for instance, more than once made a Derby book amounting to £100,000. As a matter of fact he is said to have generally lost money over the Derby and Oaks, and won it over the St. Leger. When Daniel O'Rourke won the Derby he lost about £50,000 (some say almost double this sum), having laid a great deal of money at 100 to 1. Catherine Hayes also hit him hard, and over West Australian he lost £48,000, of which £30,000 went to the owner, Mr. Bowes. In his latter years Davies rather avoided ante-post betting, especially on the Derby. The victory of Teddington in 1851 took something not far short of £90,000 out of his pockets, one cheque alone sent out by him to Mr. Greville being for £15,000. The Derby in question was very costly to the Ring in general, which lost something like £150,000. The most considerable sum, however, ever won by the great racing public of small means was when Voltigeur won the St. Leger in 1850. The excitement during the deciding heat with Russborough was probably the greatest ever seen on any race-course; and on the evening of the following day, when he won the Doncaster Cup, beating the Flying Dutchman, many of the Yorkshiremen caroused all night. As one of them said, "Who'd go to bed when Voltigeur's won the St. Leger and the Cup?"
Whilst racing possesses some claim to be considered a serious sport owing to the undoubted improvement which it has effected in the breed of horses, its most ardent supporters have been men of pleasure. The founder of the English Turf, indeed, was the "Merry Monarch," though there had been horse-racing for bells long before his time.
Charles the Second did everything he could to improve horsemanship in England. He it was who induced a celebrated French riding master, Foubert by name, to come over and settle in England. This Frenchman set up a riding academy near what is now Regent Street. His name is still perpetuated by "Foubert's Passage."