362 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



from the contemporary caricature by Rowlanclson, which is reproduced in these 

 pages. Clearly, too, Chifney's superior knowledge of condition, and probably ol 

 training also, could not always be unreservedly placed at his master's disposal without 

 a good deal of friction among those other servants whose main duties were rather to 

 feed, groom, or prepare the horses than to ride them. Moreover, the evil practice of 

 doping had unfortunately already appeared, as " Mr. Hodges, the great bettor," was 

 aware. An instance of it is indeed recorded by Mr. Orton in 1778, when William 



Turner was tried at York Castle on 

 the charge of having given two pounds 

 of duckshot, made up in putty-balls, to 

 Mr. Bethell's Miss Nightingale by 

 Matchein, from the effects of which she 

 died on the Sunday before a race for 

 which she was entered at Boroughbridge. 

 The nobbling of Magog in the same 

 year has been already mentioned. The 

 unhappy creature won, though his 

 tongue was nearly cut out. Another 

 case in the North Country occurred at 

 Doncaster in 1808, when several horses 

 were poisoned by means of some deadly 

 drug which was put into their watering- 

 troughs by the scoundrelly firm of 

 " Dawson & Co." Three years later 

 one of these rascals, named Daniel 

 Dawson, secured the assistance of one 



Cecil Bishop, shopman to a Wardour Street chemist, who first met him in 1807, and 

 had helped to poison various horses since that time, assisted by a person named Twist. 

 They had attempted to "nobble" Lord Darlington's Rubens, who won the Pavilion 

 Stakes at Brighton in 1809, and they finaJly poisoned some animals entered for the 

 Claret Stakes and the Craven Stakes at Newmarket, which were under the charge of 

 Richard Prince. Among these were Lord Foley's Pirouette and Spaniard, Lord 

 Kinnaird's Dandy, and Sir F. Standish's colt by Eagle, together worth some ,12,000, 

 considering their value and engagements. In May, 1811, Mr. Talbot was betting 

 Lord Frederick Bentinck five guineas at White's Club "that destroying a horse by 



" Filho da Puta" (1812) by "Haphazard? 



