RACING ROGUERIES.

To a man not infected with the disease, Turf-mania must appear the blindest of all infatuations. The gambler who trusts to the fall of the cards, arguing that in the natural fitness of things he is certain to be a winner some day, and spends all his time in calculating the doctrine of chances, is a rational person to the gull who, knowing what a mass of roguery leavens the Turf, will yet stake money, honour, and life upon its eventualities. Yet this is done every day, not only by greenhorns, but by men who are quite alive to the mysterious workings of the betting ring, who are fully aware that the ability of the horse or the jockey is the last factor to be taken into consideration; who can amuse you for hours with stories of the swindles practised by owners, trainers, jockeys, ‘rings,’ and who yet go on putting their money on the horse ‘that must win’—and never wins—in utter defiance of their foregathered knowledge. The racing ‘prophet’ who is behind the scenes, who makes ‘the turf’ the business of his life, not only fools the readers of the newspaper to which he sells his vaticinations, but himself as well, and often returns from a race as penniless as the silly ones who pin their faith upon his oracular utterances. Even the bookmaker has his ‘fancies,’ upon which he stakes, and loses, the money that fools have put into his purse, with a blind confidence that is almost incredible.

A certain horse has acquitted himself well in his trial gallops; there is not one in the race can beat him; and if he were allowed to do his best, would undoubtedly be the winner. But, as Touchstone says, ‘There is much virtue in an if.’ In the first place, the owner may not intend him to win, and may have actually made arrangements for laying against his own horse. Or if the owner be ‘straight,’ the jockey may have been bribed to check the horse’s speed as he nears the winning-post by some one whose interest it is that the horse shall not win. All these may work together, or each may have different interests in the event. And even should the animal be meant in all honesty to win, a stable lad for a five-pound note may secretly physic the horse, and good-bye the chances of the favourite on the morrow. Or some lurking ruffian in the pay of another owner or bookmaker may contrive to gain admission into the stable unknown to the animal’s guardians, and ‘nobble’ for himself. But even after every form of knavery has been set aside, there are contingencies that still render the risks of backing horses enormous. The jockey may spend the night before the race in dissipation, and mount with swimming head and nerveless hands; or in his cups he may betray some secret of the stable that will give the advantage to a rival; or the horse himself may become sick, or be out of form, or stumble, or be thrown out by a cur running across the course, or other accidents easy of occurrence; and yet, knowing all this, men will madly risk large sums upon the supposition that no such contretemps will happen.

A few anecdotes, however, of undeniable authenticity will better illustrate the tricks of the Turf than would pages of reflections and generalisations.

About half a century ago, at Newmarket, several horses who stood high in the betting, at different times suddenly went off sick just before the race for which they were entered; some died, others recovered, but all were disabled for the time being, and favourites that a few hours previously outstripped every rival, would come straggling yards behind the field. Every one knew they had been ‘nobbled;’ but for a long time the perpetrator remained undiscovered; at last, however, a notorious scoundrel, one Dan Dawson, was caught red-handed poisoning the troughs. During the trial, it came out that he had made a regular trade of these nefarious practices, and it was more than suspected that not a few of the biggest men on the Turf were his employers. But although he was condemned to death, whether from the hope that some among his influential patrons would intercede for a reprieve, or from that hatred which certain men of his class have against ‘peaching,’ he never betrayed them, and remained silent to the end. The most minute precautions are taken to guard the racehorse from such dangers, yet the cunning or daring of his enemies frequently proves more than a match for the care of his owners.

In 1842, Lanercost was regarded as the certain victor for the Ascot Cup. While he was being conveyed to the course in a van, the grooms in charge stopped at an inn between Leatherhead and Sunninghill to refresh, leaving one to keep watch. Just after they had gone into the house, two sailors came out of it. ‘Hillo,’ cried one, ‘here’s Lanercost; let’s have a peep at him;’ and he sprang up on the side of the van, while his companion at the same time diverted the attention of the man on guard. A moment afterwards, the first jumped down again, and then the two disappeared into a copse: it was all done so quickly that the groom had no time to interpose; and before he could summon his mates, the men were out of sight. When the race came on, instead of achieving the anticipated victory, poor Lanercost came in last. In the course of the ensuing month, he entirely changed colour, and was never fit to run again. There is no doubt that the pretended sailor had contrived to administer some powerful drug to the animal during the few seconds he hung over his box.

Somewhere about the same time, a horse named Marcus was the favourite for the St Leger. The day before the race, while he and some other horses were standing at the Doncaster Arms, an ill-looking fellow entered the kitchen of that tavern and seated himself beside a boiler from which the stable lads were every now and then drawing water for their charges. There was no one in the kitchen save a maid-servant, whom the stranger sent out to bring him a pot of beer. When she returned, the girl was going to fill her tea-kettle from the boiler, but the fellow stopped her by saying: ‘I wouldn’t take my tea-water from there if I was you, it looks so yellow and greasy.’

‘All right; I’ll get it outside,’ she answered. When she came back the second time, the man had gone.

The next morning two horses were found dead in their stalls; while Marcus, who was just able to run, came in last, and also died during the day. Upon the bodies being opened, arsenic was found in their stomachs. The girl then remembered the incident of the loafer, who had no doubt poisoned the water in the copper; and had she been as stubborn as most of her kind, several human victims would have been added to the equine list. By the defeat of Marcus, the owner of a horse named Chorister won seven thousand pounds.

Sometimes the defeat of the favourite is brought about by less bold but more subtle means; and occasionally the tables are turned in a very unexpected manner, as in the following instance. For the Doncaster of 1824, Jerry—a horse belonging to a well-known sporting man named Gascoigne—was the favourite. A little before the event came off, however, George Payne, a noted Turfite, got ‘the tip’ from John Gully, the ex-prizefighter, that Jerry would not win; and the day before the race, these two worthies, doubtless well knowing why, laid six thousand against him. Gascoigne could not understand how it was that the more he backed his horse, which was in magnificent condition, the less it advanced in favour. He felt sure there was a screw loose somewhere, but he could not tell in what direction to look for it. Two nights before the race, as he was taking a walk in the outskirts of Doncaster, he paused at a turnpike gate, and just at that moment a postchaise stopped to pay toll. By the light of the lamp which the toll-keeper held in his hand, Gascoigne observed the jockey who was to ride Jerry next day seated within, almost helplessly drunk, between two of the most notorious blacklegs of the time. In a moment he saw it all. Hurrying away, lest he should be recognised, he went back to his hotel, and set about concocting measures to counteract the plot that he perceived had been formed against him. Without making known his discovery to any one, he secured the services of another jockey, bound the man down to silence; and at the last moment, just as the traitor was going to mount, his substitute slipped into the saddle, and won the race, to the discomfiture and well-merited loss of the conspirators, who had betted all they possessed upon the event.

Men called ‘Touts’ are employed by bookmakers and others to watch racehorses at exercise and report upon their condition; these spies are abhorred by trainers and owners, and have to pursue their espionage under many difficulties, sometimes lying in a dry or a damp ditch, or a hole covered over with brambles, or on the roof of a stable, to be ready to witness the morning gallop. When detected, they do not often escape under a horsewhipping or a ducking. On one bitterly cold night, a fellow had crawled upon the roof of a stall to listen if the favourite had a cough. Aware of his presence, though pretending to be ignorant of it, the trainer ordered the stable boys to throw up pails of water upon the spot where he was ensconced until the very clothes froze upon the poor wretch’s back; but he had the consolation of hearing the horse stabled beneath cough several times, and next morning the odds were heavy against the favourite. Unfortunately for the rogues, however, the favourite on the previous night had been moved into another stable, and a horse with a cough had been substituted, to deceive the tout, with the result that those who ventured their money on his information, lost.

A much cleverer ruse was the following. An owner named Wilson was about to try a two-year-old colt. ‘We shall be watched, and his white right fore-leg will be sure to be noticed,’ remarked the trainer.—‘Leave that to me,’ said Mr Wilson. Next morning, he was at the stable at daybreak, and with some black paint soon changed the colour of the leg; while a brush dipped in white transferred the distinguishing mark to a far inferior horse, which showed but poorly beside the other. The tout on the watch naturally took one for the other, and reported accordingly. The next day, a certain nobleman gave fifteen hundred for the falsified animal, which was worth about four.

We have purposely omitted the more celebrated Turf swindles, such as the ‘Running Rein’ fraud, and others that made a sensation in their day, confining ourselves to the less known affairs, which were not found out until reparation to the victims was impossible, our principal desire being to make clear to ‘the outsiders’ the enormous odds against which they stake their money.

Those who are not behind the scenes may suppose that the bookmakers (pencillers) and the ‘knowing ones’ generally, enjoy a perfect immunity from the perils and dangers, pitfalls and temptations, of horseracing; but that is not the case. Not unfrequently they walk blindly into the trap they set for others; the biter is frequently bitten; and many an ingenious fraud has been put upon the ‘pencillers’ by outside betting-men, as the two following stories will show. For obvious reasons, all data are suppressed, but the truth of the anecdotes can be vouched for.

One day a City man, who was given to betting, and whom we shall call A, received a visit from a friend addicted to the same weakness, who shall be designated B. Locking the room door and sinking his voice to a whisper, B announced that he had made a wonderful discovery by which betting could be reduced to a system of all prizes and no blanks, and consequently a fortune very quickly realised. ‘Now is your chance,’ he said, ‘if you like to join me. I shall give no explanation of the method; come and see for yourself.’

An appointment was made for the next morning, the date of the X races, at the Z (betting) Club.

‘Have you anything on this race?’ was the first inquiry made by B as A came into the room.

The answer was in the negative.

‘Now, listen to me,’ said B, drawing him into a corner, for the place, as usual at such times, was crowded with betting-men; ‘the final list for the twelve o’clock race will be telegraphed here in a few minutes.’ (The Z, it need scarcely be said, had its private tape.) ‘Lay all the money you like, at any odds, upon the horse I shall select, and I will guarantee that it shall be the winner. But mind, you must not lose a second after I have given you the hint. Go to the nearest bookmaker in the room and make your bet on the instant.’

A minute or two afterwards, the electric bell gave the signal, and there was a general rush to the machine. B was one of the first to scan the list: there were five runners. He passed his finger down the names until he paused almost imperceptibly upon Y, and looked at his companion, who, although it was the very last horse he would have thought of backing, boldly called out: ‘I’ll take the odds against Y.’

Y being a rank outsider, a bookmaker laid the odds on the instant. One minute afterwards came the announcement that Y was the winner.

After they left the club together, B unfolded the mystery. ‘When the list of runners was telegraphed,’ he said, ‘the race was already won.’

‘But how could that be?’ asked A. ‘The race was run at twelve, and the time on the telegram was three minutes to twelve.’

‘The time was falsified,’ was the reply. ‘The message was not wired until past the hour, nor until the winner was declared.’

‘And how could you fix upon the right one?’ demanded A.

‘There was the minutest dash on the tape against the name of the winner, only noticeable by one in the secret. You see, the clerks are in the pay of an Association. There are three or four other clubs beside this where we get the telegrams in the same manner, so that we vary our times. Here, for instance, we put upon the twelve o’clock race; at another, upon the one; at a third, upon the two, and so on.’

We may add that the fraud was ultimately discovered, and the clerks who worked it severely punished.

The next trick we shall relate could not be practised now, in consequence of an alteration in the Turf customs. It was worked in this fashion by two confederates. Let us suppose it to be the Lewes races. One of the two goes down to Lewes on the previous day, and by the last post sends a letter addressed in pencil and unsealed to his brother-rogue in London. Inside the envelope is a note addressed to a bookmaker, simply containing the words, ‘Please back ____ for so much.—Yours truly, Jones’—a blank being left for the horse’s name. This missive arrives in town by the morning post, and the instant the race is run the name of the winner is telegraphed to rogue number two, who then inserts the name of the horse, rubs out his own name and address from the envelope, writes that of the bookmaker instead, and seals it up. Everything is now perfect in appearance: there are the Lewes postmark of the previous night, the London of the morning, and the seal untampered with. We need scarcely say that the handwriting appears to be the same, and, according to the rules of racing at that time, if a letter be delayed in transmission through the post, the bookmaker is still made answerable for its contents.

And now, how is it to be got into his hands without exciting suspicion? There are several ways of doing this: sometimes he may be at the club, and then the letter is dropped into the letter-box; but the favourite dodge is to dress up a man as a postman, with bag and a bundle of letters in his hand, who will deliver it at the victim’s office; or the confederate will watch for the real postman, walk behind him, drop the letter on the pavement, and then call out to the carrier: ‘Hillo, you’ve dropped one of your letters.’

The man will pick it up, and, being almost certain to have others addressed to the same person, innocently play the rogue’s game. As to the bookmaker, all he can do is to write a letter of complaint to St Martin’s-le-Grand and pay the money.

You cannot touch pitch without being defiled, or play with edged tools without being cut, says the old proverb; and you cannot associate with rogues and play the rogue without occasionally being swindled yourself.