THE FRAUD OF A DERBY 



attempted fraud exposed in the late trial in the 

 Court of Exchequer." Although the subscriptions 

 were limited to £25 each, a very large sum was 

 rapidly raised. Bentinck declined a personal gift, 

 but the money subscribed was at his request 

 made the nucleus of the Bentinck Benevolent 

 and Provident Fund for Trainers and Jockeys, 

 which is maintained and administered at the 

 present day by the authorities of the Jockey 

 Club. Official approval of Bentinck's services 

 was also recorded in a resolution agreed to by 

 the members of the Jockey Club at their general 

 meeting held in Old Burlington Street on July 6, 

 1844. 



Besides promulgating the result of the race 

 consequent upon the decision of the court, the 

 Stewards, having been asked as to the day when 

 the Epsom account should be settled, recommended 

 Monday, July 8th, for this purpose, and ordered 

 that notice to this effect should be posted at 

 Tattersalls. 



La commedia e finita. Wood, the dispossessed 

 owner, protested his innocence. The scoundrel 

 Goodman and his confederates fled the country. 

 Nothing more was seen in public of the mystery 

 horses. The story goes in Northamptonshire that 

 Worley, who owned and farmed Sywell House 

 Farm — not far from the birthplace of the Derby 

 winners of 1827 ^^^ iS47» Mameluke and Cos- 

 sack — had an interest in Maccabseus, and that 

 after the Derby the horse was taken to Sywell, 

 where he was destroyed and buried. There is 

 also a legend that at nightfall the ghost of the 

 murdered horse used to haunt the road leading 



141 



