GENERAL PEEL. 121 



cutting force that made the ulster-(;lad sportsman often shiver — a 

 sufficient test of hardihood one would think — and the man who could 

 do that at sixty-live could surely have faced with impunity even 

 a Russian winter at fifty-five. General Peel commenced his turf 

 career in 1821, when he was part owner of some horses with the 

 Duke of Richmond and Lord Stradbroke, which were trained at 

 Goodwood by Kent. In that year, as he informed Lord Rosebery's 

 Select Horse Committee in 1873, he bred Fille de Joie, whilst he 

 won three two-year-old races in 1858, and ran second for the Oaks 

 to Lord Jersey's Cobweb in 1824. It was not till the year 1830, 

 however, that General Peel's name first appeared in the Calendar, 

 when he raced in confederacy with his relative, General Yates. 

 Two years later he took a leading position on the turf through the 

 victory of his horse, Archibald, in the Two Thousand Guineas, and 

 his good fortune culminated with the triumph of his Orlando in 

 the Derby of 1844, for which race his horse, Ionian, was second. 

 That was one of the most sensational Derby s on record, and will 

 be always associated with the exposure of as iniquitous a fraud as 

 has ever disgraced the turf. A horse, entered on the caixl as " Mr. 

 A. Wood's Running Rein, by the Saddler, out of Queen Mab by 

 Duncan Grey," ridden by Mann, came in first; but, having been 

 fully proved, to the satisfaction of the Jockey Club, to be four years 

 old, was disqualified, and the race awarded to Orlando. Mr. Weather- 

 by, on receiving notice that a suit had been commenced by Wood, 

 paid the stakes into the Court of Exchequer, and Mr. Wood, the 

 owner of the pseudo three-year-old, brought an action against 

 General, then Colonel, Peel for recovery of the said stakes. The 

 issue to be tried was, " whether a certain horse called Running 

 Rein was a colt foaled in 1841, whose sire was the Saddler and 

 dam Queen Mab ? " The case of the plaintiff was, that his horse 

 was three years old, and no more, and that the pedigree he gave 

 was the true one. The defendant's case was, that the colt. Running 

 Rein, which came in first for the Derby, was not what he was repre- 

 sented as being, but a bay-colt by Gladiator, dam by Capsicum, and 

 bred by Sir C. Ibbotson in 1840. The cause was heard before Baron 

 Alderson and a special jmy on the 1st of July, 1844. The judge 

 insisted on the horse being produced, but the plaintiff, on the second 

 day of the trial, stated, that though he was most anxious to produce 

 the horse after his lordship's observations, it was quite out of his 

 power to do so, as the animal had been removed by some parties 

 without his knowledge or consent, and he did not know where it was 

 to be found ; whereupon Baron Alderson sternly said that this was 

 a case of horse-stealing, and that if he had the trying of it, he 

 would certainly transport all concerned in it for life. The plaintifTs 

 case having thus broken down, the jxiry found a verdict for the 

 defendant, and Orlando was duly and legally declared winner of the 

 Derby of 1844. Nor was this the only scandal connected with that 

 memorable race. Ratan, the second favourite, one of the finest 



