502 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



upon him too. Even Doubfs sterling performances failed to counterbalance the 

 defeat of the over-raced Goldfender in 1852. But in the following year, when things 

 looked blackest, he landed the Chester Cup and nearly .15,000, and in 1854 he 

 bought Nettle with the insurance money procured by the murder of his wife. An 

 "accident" happened to the mare in the race for the Oaks, which broke Marlow's 

 leg, and was evidently no fault of her jockey. Chicken, which he purchased at the 

 same time, seemed equally tainted by that terrible origin. His defeat in the 

 Leamington Stakes was a crushing blow. He was still a boon companion with 

 many on the Turf, considered to be good-natured from his readiness to take 

 5 to 2 for the sake of a bet when other people were getting 4 to i. He had a 

 queer habit of drinking his brandy and water in one gulp, and recommending his 

 friends to do the same. It was only a little later that they suddenly became shy 

 of doing so. 



Since his losses in 1854, Palmer had been held fast in the clutch of the money- 

 lenders. One of them, Pratt, gradually became more and more pressing. A friend 

 named Cook, who had given up a solicitor's business to invest a legacy of 10,000 

 in a racing partnership with Palmer, had been of all the help he could, eventually 

 assigning two of his own horses, Polestar and S iritis, as collateral security for 

 a loan. The day before Polestar won at Shrewsbury, Pratt wrote to Palmer that 

 i 1,500 in bills would have to be met. Cook was poisoned the night after the race, 

 with about 700 in his pocket, and transactions in his betting book showing about 

 ; 1,000 more to his credit on the settling day at Tattersall's, which he was never to 

 see. Before the poor man died, Palmer had gone up to London to see to the 

 collection of Cook's bets, but returned in time to complete his horrible work, and did 

 his best to render the post-mortem examination useless, to upset the jar containing 

 the hideous evidences of his crime, and to bribe the coroner. But he was lodged in 

 Stafford Gaol, and during his sojourn there it was found, from an examination of his 

 wife's body, that she had been slowly killed with antimony. 



The sale of his stud after his execution naturally attracted a great deal of 

 attention, and it realized 3,906. The Chickens name was appropriately changed 

 to Vengeance after Lord Portsmouth bought him, and he beat Mr. Snewing's Polestar 

 for the Cesarewitch in a common canter. If ever a racecourse was haunted it must 

 have been on the day when the dead poisoner's horse, bought with the money paid 

 for his wife's murder, beat the animal which had once belonged to another of his 

 victims, in that famous race. His brown colt by Sir Hercules was afterwards known 



