RACING ADVENTURERS. 241 



made an error ; but the mischief being done, 

 could not be undone, and the confederates agreed 

 to share the loss between them. They had got 

 on about ^500 at the respectable odds of 25 and 

 30 to I. Shortly after this apparently dismal 

 blunder, Lord Stanley's colt won a first-rate trial, 

 and eventually, when named Fazzoletto, proved 

 victorious in the race ; so that Swindell and 

 Robinson had the satisfaction of putting several 

 thousands of pounds in their pockets through 

 backing a horse by mistake." 



Other anecdotes of a like kind have, as has 

 been said, gone the round of the press, in one 

 or other of the numerous sketches written about 

 Mr. Swindell after his death, most of which were 

 of the most laudatory kind. 



GULLY AND RIDSDALE. 



" Ah, sir, you should 'ave been a-going racing 

 when John Gully and his pal Ridsdale was 

 a-carrying all before 'em ; them was the days for 

 sensations and excitements. There's not the same 

 go about the business now as there used to 

 was. Bless you, sir, I can mind when pails of 

 champagne wine was stood by winners, and 

 stable-lads turned up their noses at it. I was in 

 a racing stable in them days, where some of the 

 gents as had 'osses in it thought nothing of 

 giving me a sov. for aholding of their 'acks for 

 ten minutes. Ah, sir, them were the days for 

 stablemen," 



So said to me an ancient horsey-like man in 

 " Hannah's year" at Doncaster. I had seen hirn 

 in the morning as "the Baron's" filly was led 



R 



