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it — — — _ ■h A. lv " H H i It i." ■y ."s in in k1 It lt ■s be ,e s k. •e ,u .0 v. by v .j, the H H s. Jl, 0 .„ e. a. of ,f ,. 1S »r jy ig by y re id ■k er ne Jt ns k s. the lie u- •- ck The lie s is- has as Ik of of pn his lis fell ?11 rk u- k- on on OLD TIME ENGLISH TURF CELEBRITIES. Bookmakers Who Laid and Made Tremendous I Wagers and Owned Derby Winners. More prominent as owners of race horses than either Crockford or "Crutch" Robinson were Gully , the ex-prize fighter and M. P., Harry Hill and Ped-ley. who were contemiwraries and at times partners la horses aud as layers. Among them they were ■ credited with three races for the Derby. Mr. Gully winning twice by aid of Pyrrhus the First and And-over, and Pedley, who, like the other two. was a t mender of what William Day in his "Remines-censes of the Turf" termed the "Danebury Confederacy," . secured the Blue Riblton in 1S47 with J Cossack. In the work referred to William Day stated that Pedley was a Yorkshireraan hailing I from Huddersfield. and rose from the ranks. "He commenced betting, like all the rest of his class. with the smallest possible capital, and soon reached the coveted dignity of a professional. He was in his ■ calling reputable aud made a large Itook. Well 1 known from his ungainly figure, his stentorian voice could be heard all over the ring as he shouted: : "Ill lay against the favorite; two monkeys to one t " against anything." "With the acute sagacity of f all his class." William Day averred, and probably with reason, "that Pedley was never known to lay j more than the proper odds, except In cases of sick- ness. Then he would be a little more liberal, in his s terms; sometimes, iudeed. even to rashness in des- perale cases." It is further chronicled "that, al- though he won the Derby with Cossack, the victory apiK-ars to have done him but a tem|M rnry service. as he came to grief shortly afterwards." At Ches- - ter in Our Mary Anns year 1S70 he came up to Day and asked the latter what he would advise him to back. Day recommended him to have 1H | lMiunds on Our Mary Ann, and Pedleys reply, "I wish I could." was full of mournful significance, without the addition of "things are now different | with me from what they used to be." Anyway. the one-time leviathan owner of a Derby winner J took Days advice as far as he could, taking a bet of .5o0 to 25, and after the race he came and thanked the famous trainer, saying that it had 1 saved him. John Cully stood out head and shoulders above the other members of the confederacy. The son of r f a publican, who afterwards became a butcher, Gully was l»orn in Gloucestershire, and he early be- " came a prize fighter, his entry into the ranks of the j fietie profession being expedited by a success gained at Bristol over a bully who, it turned out. was a 1 noted pugilist in that town. Into the details of his s ring career or his i olitical activity as M. P. for r Wakefield it is not necessary to enter here. After r his retirement Gully turned publican, in the manner T of many of his predecessors and those that succeeded him. According to "The Druid." he rapidly advanced to the front as a bookmaker and backer, and his fame at the Corner was at its zenith about •t the year 1830. when he was a betting partner with 1 Ridsdale. His countenance was calm, but defiant. " wrote ""The Druid." and in the latter respect the ! description agreed with that of Sylvanus. who wrote I of Cullys •threatening, overcharged brow." "His J carriage was dignified and manly." to quote further from the first named author, "such as few could excel." „" and he was said ti be one of the finest men II that ever lived. He was a heavy backer of horses. ""doing great execution at the Corner in Andovers J year." and had some in several stables liofore he ! raced in nis own name, when his string was trained J h- John Scott at Whitehall and afterwards by John 11 Day at Danebury. Although credited with being tho J owiier of two Derby winners in Pyrrhus the First and Andover. and an Oaks heroine in Mendicant, he 0 only held half a share in each of these classic win- !" ners, which were all trained at famous Danebury. The other partner in Pyrrhus the First and Mendi- cant was old John Day. their trainer, and the astute J Mr. Padwick was the other part owner of Andover. .■ Mendicant was subsequently sold to Sir Joseph ! Haw ley. A fortunate purchase it was, moreover, for the "lucky baronet." for ns the result of a * mating with Weatherbit she produced Beadsman. one of the four horses with which Sir Joseph In turn carried off the "Blue Ribbon." His other r Derby winners were Teddington in the Great Ex- - hibition year. 1851. Musjid. which scored in 1859 9 the year after Beadsman, and Blue Gown 1808. , Classic winners descended from Mendicant, in ad- L dition to Beadsman, include Shotover Two Thousand ,1 and Derby and Belpboebe One Thousand. Mendi i- c I I fc ■ : J . . . . , , , [ I j ? ; j ] ■ ; : ; cant was by Tonchstonc, and from her half-sister, 1 Lady Sarah, came The Bloomer, grandam of the 1 Derby winner George Frederick. Another well- known horse owned bv Gullv was Old England. ! which ran third for "the Derby of 1MB to The i Merry Monarch anil Anuan.lalc. In that race Gully | was doubly represented, Weatherbit 7 to 2 against being Lis first string and starting second favorite , to Idas 3 to 1. It was a Derby of mishaps. ■ for at the post Mr. Grevilies Alarm and The Libel had a kicking and wrestling match. Alarm first | kicked The Libel, which responded by jnmping on " top of Alarm and knocked Flatman out of the saddle. Alarm then bolted and collided with the chains bounding the course. He was caught, re- mounted, and ran in the race, but had been sadly eat about. In running Pam fell at the Corner, and Gullys pair. Old England and Weatherbit. both had to jump over him. Another good horse , j owned by Gully, who managed to get hold of his share of good ones, was The Ugly Buck, which I in the previous year won the Two Thousand in the i colors of his trainer, John Day. According to ! William Day. Sully "was of an overbearing and | tyrannical disposition, extremely avaricious, and. like men of his class, not over scrupulously nice ; In the acquirement of wealth." A man of many ■ quarrels, after words had been exchanged between i them Squire Osbaldeston challenged Gully, had him i "out," and sent a pistol ball through is hat. "Better through my hat than my head." exclaimed ; the ex-prize-fighter, as he picked up his headgear : and coolly surveyed the bullet hole. In addition to the horses he owned by himself Gully bad many others in partnership with Harry Hill, which ran , independently, inclusive of Trumpeter. Hermit by , Bay Middleton. Pitsford. Cymha, etc. Gully died I an old man after losing the greater part of his j nionev. Harry Hill was a bookmaker, backer, commissioner and owner of horses. According to itopulnr reftort lie was originally a "Itoots" at a public . house or hotel — a vocation made famous by the immortal Sam Weller — and before he blossomed out into a magnate of the ring it was rumored that his furniture, when he first made his way to town, scarcely r. "quired a Pickfords van for its conveyance, 1 consisting of a small table, a thimble and a ! few peas. Rumor may have been correct, but it is 3 ever the way of a censorious world to attribute the rapid acquisition of wealth to unworthy methods. • At any rate, he became a racing star of much prominence, - and he did commissions for some of the leading betting owners of his day. Doubtless he I was able at times to get a good deal of money by [ laying dead uns, in those days an operation which brought much wealth to members of the ring, the l absence of training reports and other present-day f sources of information concerning horses often causing animals to be backed when out of training or dead. With Cymba Mr. Hill won the Oaks of 184K. the filly being steered by Sim Templeman, but Alfred Day was on the back of Pitsford when he secured . the Two Thousand in 1850. Four years later the last-mentioned "classic" was s won for the partners by The Hermit, which ran in a the name of Mr. Gully. This is the horse between a whicli and Mr. Chaplins Derby winner. Hermit, the catch bet about Hermit having won the Guineas s had its origin. In connection with the betting operations •. of the cotorie William Day observes that it t was no wonder that some members of the ring g made much profit in those days, "with Hill," for r example, "offering to lay and Gully to back, and d Joshua Arnold willing to do cither or both — all " being confederates. And well might the result t have been attained, the public being completely mystified by the adroit art of these professors." Like Mr. Padwick who often raced under other •r names than his own, sometimes as Mr. "Howard" * and Gully, Hill had several trainers, and from his s betting and other transactions the latter amassed ! a big fortune. He was a frequenter of West-end S public houses, and dressed in a faded black suit that fitted him only where it touched. On his fondness ■ for the fair sex we need not here dilate. He j0 was said to have had a bad race over West Australians *" Leger. for after Frank Butler had been carpeted before the race and told his fate if he did I not win. Hill was able to get back little of the ,e large amount he had laid against the colt. It was is said that the race cost him 00,000. Of all his wealth Ackworth Park, whicli he had acquired from ii Gully, was the only tangible property remaining g when he died, but it was rumored that he had made le over the remainder of his property during his life c time by deed of gift in order to save succession U duty.
