RACING ADVENTURERS. 



It is not the writer's intention to venture on 

 a full gallery of racing adventurers, but to present 

 three or four portraits only by way of sample 

 of the fifty or sixty which might be painted by 

 the pen in black and white, and he has selected 

 Messrs. Crockford, Gully, Ridsdale, Swindell, 

 and Davis " the Leviathan " as being typical 

 of the whole body. 



DAVIS THE LEVIATHAN. 



Among the racing adventurers who flourished 

 sixty years since, the names of Davis, Crockford, 

 Gully, and Ridsdale were prominent in turf 

 affairs ; these men and others like them were 

 much trusted and betted to win or lose large 

 amounts; "their mere word," as a certain noble 

 baronet who did business with them said, " is 

 better than other men's bonds." They paid sums 

 of five, ten, or twenty thousand pounds when they 

 lost them without the slightest hesitation, not 

 infrequently indeed before they were due accord- 

 ing to betting etiquette. Sixty years ago, 

 racing adventurers began to come to the front 

 and some of them soon acquired fortunes ; several 



