RACING ADVENTURERS. 245 



cannot, when the struggle is over, show a winning 

 balance. The days of Gully were those of heavy 

 betting, so far as individual speculation was con- 

 cerned ; that is to say, there might then be a 

 hundred men on the turf who betted to stakes of 

 hundreds or thousands ; but at the present time, 

 although individual bets are not perhaps made to 

 such large amounts, the number of persons who 

 bet is as hundreds to one to what the number 

 was when John Gully was a prominent person in 

 the ring. 



At the " period " referred to, say from about 

 1 8 18 to 1840, race-horses were less numerous than 

 they are at present, and bookmakers, moreover, 

 were not so plentiful as now ; but most of them 

 managed to do a good business and to put money 

 in their purses. Gully, gathering experience day 

 by day, was soon able to play a prominent part in 

 the heavy speculations which formed a feature of 

 the turf in those times ; and whenever he thought 

 2.Vi.y commission entrusted to him was a really 

 good one — that is to say, as denoting the chance 

 of the horse to win — he followed the lead of his 

 employer, and by doing so often won considerable 

 sums ; whilst if he knew, as he frequently did, 

 that a horse was sure to be beaten, he would 

 spiritedly lay the odds against its chance of 

 winning. It is recorded that on one occasion 

 he was engaged to back two horses in a race to 

 win, and, along with a confederate, he had five 

 to lay against ; the two which he backed to win 

 ran first and second, the others, as had been 

 " arranged," came in a long way behind the 

 winner. A few chances of that kind soon bring 

 grist to a betting man's mill. 



