The Romance of Million-Making.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 235, 15 December 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Romance of Million-Making.

The British Turf has never known a liner sportsman than Lord George Bentinck, brother of the " mad Duke of Portland." In physique the beau ideal of the English nobleman, the soul of honour and chivalry, he was the idol of his day, as well as "the lorfl paramount of the racing world, so difficult to sway, which requires for its government both a stern resolve and a courtly breeding. Ho valued the acquisition of money on the Turf," Beaconsfield says, because there it was a test of success. He counted his thousands after a great race as a victorious general counts his cannon and his prisoners."

Probably no man of any age ever conducted his wagering on a more prodigal scale, or won or lost a fortune with such a lordly indifference. His coups were magnificent alike in their conception and their execution. Ho stood to win £150,000 on his horse, Gaper, for the Derby of 1843; nnd, although Gaper was not even placed, so cleverly had he made his book that he came away a winner of £30,000." Two years later, in 1845. his betting winnings amounted to upwards of £IOO,OOO, and. although his expenses came to £50,000, his clear gain averaged nearly a thousand pounds a week for the year. So successful iwas he that John Kent says: "If he h.ad been content with betting and bad never owned stables he could have made a million pounds in a score of years, so excellent a judge was lie of a horse."

When John Gully was born one August day in 1785 under the roof of his father's village inn, near Bath, who could have foreseen that before he died he would be a memlier of Parliament and one of the richest men in England as the result of success on the Turf? How lie began his working life as a- butcher, and, after a spell in the Fleet Prison, blossomed into the champion bruiser of England is fairly well known. It was after lie had resigned the championship, and while playing the role of landlord of the Plough Inn, in Carey-street, that he made his modest first appearance on a racecourse as a bookmaker, with such extraordinary success that within three or four years lie was in a position to own a racing stud of his own and to give Lord Jersey 4,000 guineas for that grand horse, Mameluke, winner of the 1827 Derby. As ill-luck would have it, Mameluke lost the St. Leger by half a length, and Gully dropped £45,000 over his first venture as an owner, but from that disastrous day fortune smiled consistently on him. He soon found a veritable gold-mine in Memnon, who won the Leger in a canter and put £BO,OOO in his owner's pocket. In partnership with Robert Ridsdale he won £60,000 on St. Giles for the Derby, £45,000 on Margrave for the St. Leger, and similar sums when he captured both the Derby and the Oaks—the former with Pyrrhus the Elder, and the latter with Mendicant. Thus, within a few years, the ex-butcher and bruiser was able to leave the Turf a rich man. He was elected member of Parliament for Pontefraet; became 9ole owner of the Great Wingate Grange estate and :ts extensive "colleries, and ended' his days, at the age of 79, a millionaire and & county magnate.

Sir Joseph Haw ley wins one of the few men whose good fortune it is to he born both "lucky and rich." Heir to a baronetcy and to great wealth, V was throughout his life the spoiled child of fortune. On the Turf his success was phenomenal. When, for instance, he purchased Mendicant from John Gully for 3,000 guineas his friends laughed at his folly, but the laugh was with Sir Joseph when Mendicant put €IOO,OOO in a single year into his pockets, and when her son, Beadsman, by his Derby victory : n 1858, added £BO,OOO to his hank balance in Iwts, in addition to the unusually rich stakes. With Teddington, purchased as a three months foal for 250 giuneas from a Stamford blacksmith, lie won the Derby of 1851, and, it is said, made considerably over £IOO,OOO out of the race —400 guineas for every guinea the winner had cost him. No less successful was Mendicant's grandson, Blue Gown, which Sir Joseph fancied so little that he did not intend to run him in the Derby. But when he heard that the public were on the horse to a man he said "Then they sIkUI certainly have a run for their money." And run ha did, to such good purpose that he, too, carried off the Blue Riband. Thus, for his 250 guineas, the "lucEy Baronet" secured two Derby winners and at least a quarter of a million pounds in stakes and bets! No such luck, however, was the lot of Mr. George Payne, one of the lies') sportsmen and also greatest gamblers the Turf has ever known. When Payne came of age lie inherited Sulby Abbey, with a rent-roll of £17,000 a year, in addition to £300,000 in ready money; and already, a year before he came into his patrimony, lie had lost £30.000 on a single race —the St. Leger of 1824. His betting was of the most reckles® description. He would, we are told sometimes back two dozen horses in a race, and then miss the winner. Some of his coups, however, were well judged, and twice he only failed by a hair's breath to pull off an immense stake. The first was in Lord Lyons' year when Savornake, which he had hacked to win £60,000, only lost th? Derby by the shortest of siliort heads and the second w.'ien Pell Moll, which he had h-r.-ked to win him L 40,000, was beaten by a head l»y Ctvmorne. Thus in two races, Mr. Payne lost £IOO,(XXJ by a low inches! However, he had his streaks of luck, for lie won £12.000 on Memnon's St. Lege.r, and £20,000 when Sefton came fn first in the Derby of But such gleams of luck were very rare, and it is no exaggeration to say that- before the Lord of Sulby saw his last race he had paid considerably over half a million pounds in Turf losses.

Another splendid prodigal of the race-course was Colonel Mellish, who rivalied even Lord Bentinek in the M.-ale and daring of his -wagers. "Ximrod" tells us that the Colonel never opened his mouth under £SOO 'in the betting ring, and his wagers more commonly ran into live figures, as when he lost £20.000 on Sanclio in a match agamst the Duke of Cleveland's Pavilion. After the race he lunched at the Star and Garter at Richmond with the Royal party as calmly as if he had been I is'ng threepenny points at whist. Xo.was h n any more ruffled when lie dropped £OO,OOO over the St. Lege of and £70,000 over the Derbv of the following year. So reckless was he that, in spite of otas'ional slices o! luck —h" won the St. Leger, for examnle. in two consecutive years. and ls()5 he was compelled, alter a f >w prodigal years, to sell lies stud and ret.ir" from the Turf. But evn Harry M-l'i.-h (as he was iifr-.-'tion ,trly known') had a. very formidable rival in the last Marquess oi Hast nes. whose meteoric career came t • s'i !i p (J->s t » nearly fifty years

(By the Author of * Dramas of Royal Courts.")

ago. The Marquess's early years on the Turf were as successful as his last year was disastrous. In 1864 (when la was barely 22), he won £IO,OOO in stakes; in 1866 nearly £13,000, and m the following year, a-s much as £30,3-53.

And great as these winnings were, they were smaM compared with the sums he won by backing other men's horses, as when he won £75,000 over Lecturer s victory in the Cesarewitc'i. So excellent a judge of horses was he that there was a good deal of truth in his boast that he could have made a certain £30,000 a year out of betting, i.f he could only have kept his head. But that was precisely what his lordship could not do, and what proved his ruin-

He laid so recklessly against Hermit for the Derby of 1867 that, when that historic outsider won, the Marquess lost £IOO.OOO. His ruin was complete a few months later, when his filly, Lady Elizabeth, failed to win even a place in the race for the Middle Park Plate, a failure which cost her o,wner £50,000 —a sum which was more than he had in all the world to lose, such inroads had his gambling losses (chiefly at the card-table) made in one of the greatest fortunes in England. Not long before his death Lord Hastings said to friend, "Hermit fairly broke my heart, but I didn't show it, did IP" When Lady Elizabeth passed the post a bad fifth, the keenest eyes could not have detected a trace of his feelings in the smiling face he turned to the world. But his heart was at Jast broken, and a year later "Harry Hastings" was dead, et the early age of twenty-six, leaving neither heir to his honours nor the smallest wreckage of his fortune; but leaving the memory of a true sportsman and a perfect gentleman, who was no man's enemy but his own. Admiral Rous once said: "The only men who can make money on the Turf are the bookmaker and the jockey," and, indeed, there seems to be a great deal of truth in the statement. John Gully's successful career was more than matched by Davies, the "leviathan bookmaker," as he was dubbed, whoso colossal transactions were the wonder of the sporting world a couple of generations ago. Davies' first venture, in the days when he was a journeyman carpenter, was a sovereign on Attila for the Derby, an investment which put a hundred pounds in his pocket, and also decided him to lay down his piano and saw and turn bookmaker. So rapid was his success that we soon find him laying Lord Enfield £12,000 to £I,OOO against The Cur for the Cesare. witch of 1848, and, a little later, clearing £50,000 on the Cesarewitch and the Cambridgeshire. From this time his dealings were on a scale totally eclipsing any the Turf had l ever known. He thought as little of winning or losing £50,000 over a single race as of sitting down to a meal. So colossal were his winnings that his balance at the London and' Westminster Bank rarely fell below £150,000. As for his losses, we are told, " lie dropped £50,000 over West Australian's Derby, while his list clerk paid away no fewer than 70,000 sovereigns in small sums." On Teddingtons' Derby the "Leviathan" lost £IOO,OOO. This enormous sum he paid with as much indifferenco as the Bank of England would' have done, and, to prevent any ground for sinister gossip, without waiting for settling day, gladdened Mr. Charles Grev: I la's eyes with a cheque for £15,000, twenty-four hours before the numbers had gone up. But Davies could affor.l to smile at even such gigantic losses as these, for his fortune continued to grow at such a rate, that, when he died, he was one of the richest men 'n England. And similar stories of fortunes made on the Turf are told cf scores of other book-makers. In these days of huge prizes, ranging up to £IO,OOO for theiwinning of a single race (the Eclipse Stakes), a really first-class horse may—and often does —prove a "gold mine" to its owner, b? was conclusively proved by Persimmon when he won for his owner, King Edward, the colossal sum of £34,706 in seven races—an average of little less than the annual salary of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for each victorv. Little less wonderful as a money-earn-er was Isinglass, whose aggregate winnings Reached the gigantic sum of £57,455, and of whose dam, Deadloc!;, the following romantic story is told. Deadlock originally belonged to Lord Alington, and on one occasion when Captain Mat-lie!I was paying a visit to rCichell, he purchased her for the modest price of £l9. The Captain shortly afterwards disposed of Deadlock, and for a time all trace of her was lost. One morning, however a farmer came to see the cart-stallion, Marvellous. Hi was in a light cart, and the animal m the shafts struck the Captain as being an old friend, and he was not long in recognising Deadlock . It was not very difficult to regain possession of her, as the farmer was glad to exchange her for a fine colt by Marvellous. In 1889 she gave birth to Is nglass, and, a few years after, when the hero of the "triple crown" had fully established his fame, Lord Alington laughingly eproached Captain Macheli with having deprived him of a horse like Isinglass, saying, " It was a nice tiling to come to niv place and virtually -take away a Derby winner for nineteen soverciirns 1"

Donovan was a close rival to Isinglass, with a shade under £55,000 to his credit: and Flying Fox, after winning £40,000 in stakes, was sold to \L Blanc, after his racing days were over, for £30,.')75. Ayrshire won £'35,900. La Fieclie. £34,385; Ornio and Frusqnin, nearly £30.000 a-piece—and so on through the long list of horses that, have put tens of thousands of pounds into their owners 'pockets in stakes alone. To these sums, too, should he added the amounts won by their tsons •and daughters, and later progeny, if we are to ascertain their full potential value: there we reach figures which are truly stupendous. Take St. Simon, for instance, the great stud success of modern tunes. In eleven seasons his sons and daughters ,won something like a quarter of a million pounds in stakes. Black look sired no fewer than 123 win liers who secured stakes to the value rf I' 15,000; and Hnrnblotonian, who himself won the St. Leger and nineteen other races, was sire of 144 winners of do,ooo. In seven years Jsonomy's nrogenv accumulated over £155.000; Hampton's, £120,000, and Galopin's L' 124,000. In a single year Stoekwell's descendants placed £61.000 to their credit, in days when £IO,OOO stakes were unknown : and Hermit's progenv are s-vid to have won at lea.st half l mililon pounds. Thus wo see that a single rao "horse may potentially b" worth much more than ir,.anv n goldmine: although, has happened in nipnv eases, he n ay have been bought for "en old song." Indeed, the stories of some of the most famous horses pre stranger than romance. Queen Mary, for example, was laterally given awiv as worthless, though she was destmod to he the mother of a Derby winner,

Blink Bonny. Boadicea, the grand-dam of the great Touchstone, was actually swopped by Sir Charles Knightly for an old cow; and Flying Duchess was sold for a five-pound note, along with a number of other mares. Godolphin, .ancestor of the great Eclipse, whose descendants must have won mililons of pounds in stakes and bets, was picked' up by "old Coke" of Norfolk, in Paris, where he had been spending his days between the shafts of a water-cart; Highland Laddie was bought from the .shafts of a gig for a sum (£2l 14- ) which worked out at sixpence a pound; nnd the great Flying Childers, the finest horse of his century in the opinion of many good judges, spent his early years in carrying the postbags of his native village. Throstle, who defeated Ladras so sensationally in the St. Leger, was born with, a thick film over her eye.-:; and her owner, Lord Alington, thought so Ixadiy of her that he offered her as a free gift to a friend, who politely declined the offer. Queen of the Roses twice changed owners before she came into the hands of the Duke of Beaufort —once in exchange for a bag of torn, and the second time for a rick >f bay; and Stock,well whose descendant 4-, as we have seen, won £61.000 in a single year, and who was the sire of three Derby and six St. Leger winners, was picked up by Lord Exeter for the absurd sum of £IBO.

The Widow was so little thought of by her owner, the Marquis of Westminster, that he made a present of her to his bailiff, who was glad to sell her for a ten-pound note, litie dreaming that fclie woudi put £40,000 into her new owner's pocket by a single race; and Salamander, Grand National winner and one of the finest steeplechasers the world has known, was hawked about from one country fair to another until at last a purchaser was found willing to risk £35 on him. Such are a few of the romantic stories told of horses tint have won millions for the fortunate owners of themselves and their progeny.

But in spite of such strokes of luck, speaking generally, the owning of racehorses is a costly luxury which demands a very long purse for its indulgence. Few men have had a more successful Turf career than the sixth Lord Falmouth. Between 1872 and 1883 he is said to have won £300,000 in stakes; and yet his expenses were no heavy that he was compelled to sell all his horses and break up his magnificent breeding stud. "It was either that or the workhouse," he declared laughingly to a friend. The Prince Regent won £30,000 in stakes in four successive years; but, as the cost of his stud during the period was £120,00U, he was actually £90,000 out of pocket. And: although the Duke of Portland won nearly £74,000 in one phenomenal year (1889) and ranks as the most successful of living owners, it is saul that he would be hundreds o-f thousands of pounds richer to-day if he had never owned a racehorse.

But wiien all is said, the only man who reliably and consistently makes money out of the Turf is the successful jockey . When Fred Archer once consulted Sir James Paget, the famous Burgeon, and mentioned that, unless he was well enough to ride in the Derby, he would lose a considerable sum, Sir James asked "What do you mean by 'a considerable sum'P" "Oh, about £2,000," was Archer's answer. "Dear me!" exclaimed the surgeon in amazement, "You don't say so! I wish my profession was a hundredth part as profitable as yours—that I could make twenty pounds in three minutes." So great were Archer's earnings in the pig-skin that at one time he was- reputed to be worth upwards of £200,000; and, although he lost large sums in Stock Exchange speculations, he was able to leave £60,000 behind him when he died.

But there is no space left to enlarge on tho subject of jockeys' feats 'if money earning. It must suffice to tell just one story. When John Wells steered Blue Gown to victory in the Derby of 1868, Sir Joseph Hawley handed over the entire stakes not much less than £6,000 —to his jockeyeach minute of the race thus bringing 'him something like 2,000 guineas. "Who would be Prime Mifiister after this?" the delighted Wells is sand to have exclaimed. And who would, we wonder; for in less than two and threequarter minutes he had made more than a full year's salary of tho Fir.it Lord of tlie Treasury!