122 FAMOUS RACING MEN. 



horses ever seen, was " made safe " the very evening before the 

 Derby by some cunningly-devised bolus, which effectually put him 

 hors lie combat for the morrow. And it was shrewdly suspected 

 that more than one of the other competitors came under the same 

 category as Eunning Rein. To Lord George Bentinck, as we have 

 already remarked in our sketch of that nobleman, was mainly owing 

 the dispersal of this nest of robbers ; and the manner in which he 

 wove together the web of evidence against Running Rein won 

 the admiration even of professional lawyers. But to tmn to a 

 pleasanter aspect of this sensational race. It gave General Peel 

 an opportunity of conspicuously displaying his high sense of 

 honour. He had laid his friend, I^ord Glasgow, t' 10,000 to iJlOO 

 against Ionian. When he tried the latter horse in the spring, 

 he was surprised to find that the colt was nearly as good as his 

 stable companion, Orlando, and owner, trainer, and jockey came to 

 the conclusion that if anything went wrong with Orlando, Ionian 

 must win. Under these circumstances the General got his money 

 covered at some sacrifice, and told Lord Glasgow to give his own 

 orders to the jockey who was put up. The result proved the 

 •correctness of his judgment. The reluctance, too, exhibited by 

 Colonel Peel to declare to win with Taffrail, when he had the Cam- 

 bridgeshire of 1848 at his command, either with her or with Dacia, 

 was a noble instance of a consideration for the public which has 

 certainly gone out of fashion in our own times. In the Newmarket 

 Second October Meeting of 1878 the purple jacket and orange cap, 

 familiar on most English race-courses for nearly sixty years, was 

 borne to victory for the last time by a colt upon which his owner, 

 always happy in the selection of names, bestowed the appropriate 

 designation of Peter; for, not only was a son of Hermit aptly 

 so called, but the name had a further significance. A group of 

 •old turfites had given Lord Glasgow, General Peel's life-long 

 friend, the sobriquet of Peter, and never called that touchy and 

 eccentric old sportsman by any other name. A writer, who is 

 well known as the most accomplished journalist on the sporting 

 press, has left us a graphic picture of the subject of this sketch, 

 in the palmy days of Newmarket, some five-and-twenty years ago. 

 " In those days," he says, " a well-known group of horsemen (among 

 whom General Peel, Admiral Rous, Lord Glasgow^ Lord Exeter, 

 Mr. Greville, and, until he gave up riding. Lord Strafford, were 

 the most conspicuous figures) might have been seen together upon 

 the Heath, as they watched the issue of many an exciting race. 

 The station selected by them was the rolling swell, which runs like 

 a wave across the famous plain — 



' . . . quam Ditis nomine dicta 

 Fossa secat.' " 



In days when Newmarket was anathematised by north-country 

 trainers, and especially by John Scott, as being unfit to train a 

 donkey upon, General Peel elected to keep his stud there, and he 



