30 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



had been satisfied — was Mr. Gully. Sam Chifney, it will 

 be remembered, rode the crack against Robinson on the 

 mare ; and Sykes had the care of the Derby winner at 

 Hambledon. A year or two subsequent to this, Mr. 

 Gully became the confederate of Mr. Ridsdale ; and they 

 opened well with Little Red Rover, who in 1880 ran 

 second to Priam for the Derby. 'Thirty-two, however, 

 was their great year, when the confederates won the 

 Derby with St. Giles, and Gully the St. Leger with Mar- 

 grave, John Scott having the preparation of the latter. 

 Success, however, did not tend to cement the friendship of 

 the two j and their quarrel came at last to a personal 

 encounter in the hunting field, upon which Mr. Ridsdale 

 brought an action, that terminated in a verdict, with £500 

 damages, against Mr. Gully, for the assault. This was 

 not by any means the only serious altercation the latter 

 was ever engaged in, as Mr. Osbaldeston once faced him 

 with the poker in the Rooms at Doncaster, when *^an 

 explanation" ensued; and the currently- credited *' meeting" 

 was avoided. During this era in his history, Mr. Gully 

 had purchased Upper Hare Park, near Newmarket, of 

 Lord Rivers, where, as we have said, he for some time 

 resided ; but he sold this, in turn, to Sir Mark Wood, 

 and bought Ackworth Park, near Pontefract — an accession 

 which somewhat unexpectedly led to his representing that 

 borough, in the Radical interest, for some sessions, in 

 Parliament. He was twice returned, and on the first 

 occasion without a contest. During- his long sojourn here 

 he also figured as a good man over a country, and as one 

 of the chief supporters of the Badsworth Foxhounds. 

 But the Turf, after all, was his ruling passion ; and in 

 1834 he was heart and soul with the Chifne^^s, in their 

 vain endeavour to win the Derby with Shillelagh, Gully 



