THE DERBY OF 1844. 409 



Scarcely had he done so before Lord George 

 Bentinck advised Colonel Peel, the owner of 

 Orlando, the second horse, to make an objection 

 against the winner. In order to gain the evidence 

 necessary to prove the fraud, of which Lord 

 George felt sure that Mr A. Wood and his 

 accomplice were guilty, he set out from London 

 to interview Mr Thomas Ferguson at Rossmore 

 Lodge, Curragh of Kildare. The following letter, 

 written by a friend of Mr Ferguson, will speak for 

 itself: 



" At the time when the Derby of 1844 was run, 

 I was on terms of the warmest friendship with 

 ' Tom Ferguson,' of Rossmore Lodge, Curragh, 

 who had no secrets from me. This fact was well 

 known to one of Lord George Bentinck's most 

 trusted commissioners, who upon the evening of 

 the day on which Running Rein ran first for the 

 Derby, came post-haste from Epsom to my house 

 in London, and induced me to write to Ferguson, 

 so as to obtain from him information with which 

 he was acquainted as to the substitution for the 

 Maccabeus colt of an Irish horse who, under the 

 name of Running Rein, won the Derby in 1844. 

 The commissioner in question stood to win a very 

 large stake on Colonel Peel's Orlando, and pro- 

 mised me faithfully that he would put me on a 

 large sum to nothing if I assisted in unveiling the 

 fraud. In addition, he pledged me his most solemn 



