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 according to betting etiquette. Sixty
years ago, racing adventurers began to come to the front and some of
them soon acquired fortunes; several of the number who did so had not
the wit, however, to keep the money they earned, and so fell back to
their original condition. Such was the fate of Ridsdale, at one time
racing partner with John Gully and a man of wealth. Crockford, as
shall presently be narrated, began life as a fishmonger, and in the
course of his career became a millionaire. In his young days Gully was
a butcher and afterwards a professional pugilist; Davis again was a
carpenter by trade, and flourished every day after becoming a betting
man, the excitement of which career suited his temperament. Others of
the bookmaking and betting fraternity had beginnings equally humble:
some of them had been helpers in stables; one prominent man in turf
affairs had driven a hackney coach; another had been footman at one
time in a gentleman's family, but by the aid of turf chicanery became
wealthy, and able himself in time to keep a couple of footmen. It is
not possible within the limits of the present volume, to include more
than three or four brief biographical sketches of the more prominent of
the racing adventurers who have earned notoriety on the turf.
Davis, "the Leviathan," as he was called in racing circles, possessing
a genius for the manipulation of figures, ultimately became one of
the most successful bookmakers of his time, betting to thousands in
the ring and to the silver or gold offered at his lists. As has been
more than once related, the future "Leviathan's" first bet involved no
greater risk than half-a-crown; but that sum, small as it was, turned
out a prolific parent, he who risked it being found ten years later in
the foremost ranks of the betting ring. Davis speedily discovered in
his own case that "backing" horses, unless in exceptional instances,
could never be profitable, no matter how generally fortunate he might
be in selecting winners; he therefore speedily forsook that mode of
betting and began "making a book," laying at first the odds to small
money only to his fellow workmen. At the time indicated he was in the
service of Cubitt & Co., the great builders, as a journeyman carpenter.
The "Leviathan's" plans received a fillip from the fact of his being
engaged in the erection of the subscription rooms at Newmarket. Cubitt
& Co., his employers, being contractors for the job, he had therefore
congenial surroundings, which confirmed him in his resolve to make
money by means of horse-racing. The chief meetings held at the turf
metropolis took place while the rooms were being built, and as Davis
had taken lodgings in the house of a stable helper, he was thus enabled
to obtain more reliable information of the doings on Newmarket Heath
than he might otherwise have been in a position to get. This enabled
him to lay the odds and back horses with a greater certainty of winning
both ways, a plan he adopted with considerable success. As he said to
a friend, "when I got to know, which I often did, that a horse was not
doing the right sort of work for a particular race, I tried all the
more to lay the odds against it; on the other hand, I backed any horse
that I was told was taking proper exercise. It is a fine thing for a
small betting man as I was then to be able to handle the stick at both
ends; by doing that I made a bit, and so was all ready when bigger
chances came to hand to make the most of them."
When the job he was engaged on at Newmarket was finished, Davis came
back to London with what he called a tidy pocketful of money, as much
as fifty-seven pounds, the fruit of his economy and industry. Having
thrown up his work at Cubitt's, he with the sum named began business
as a bookmaker, and succeeded from the beginning. His first great
hit was made on the "Two Thousand Guineas." Having obtained reliable
information about the chance of Sir Tatton Sykes for the race in
question, he backed that horse to win, taking care at the same time to
lay against as many of the other horses engaged in the contest as his
customers would back. The money he made on this occasion amounted to
a considerable sum, the possession of which enabled him to extend his
business and also to bet in bigger sums. Hitherto he had very rarely
laid the odds to half-a-sovereign, but after Sir Tatton's victory he
ventured to bet sovereigns, and by doing so increased his store not
rapidly but steadily.
A friend of Davis' was wont to relate that it was in consequence of a
dream he backed Sir Tatton. Falling asleep one Sunday afternoon, he
fancied he was reading a newspaper, and that its tip for the Guineas,
in large letters, was "Sir Tatton Sykes first"; that he read quite
plain, but the names of the placed horses being blurred he could not
make them out. Thinking little of his vision, he went about his work on
Monday as usual, but, singularly enough, on Monday night the vision
was repeated, with the words added, "this will come right." Davis
was staggered by the circumstance, and being in possession of other
information resolved to have "a bit extra" on, and so landed a good
stake for his then position in the betting arena. Many curious dreams
connected with horse-racing have from time to time been told, and the
above story, now first related, may be added to the number.
Visiting, day by day, all the well-known sporting public-houses in
London, picking up a little information here and making a few bets
there, and always paying punctually when he lost, Davis speedily made a
connection, and in a short time attracted a large number of customers.
Being modest of manner and invariably civil, good fortune attended
most of his efforts. Another feature in his favour was that he was
liberal in offering odds, generally naming a point more than any of his
competitors, so that he soon became "first favourite" among the betting
men who were fond of backing their "fancy." Davis, in those days,
betted for ready money only, and it was a maxim of his that "if you
can lay all the horses, a point of additional odds is of no moment."
"The horse which wins," he was wont to say, "brings you nothing, all
the others do." In the beginning of his career, slow and sure was his
motto; "ten pounds gained on each of five small races makes fifty."
Passing on to a later period of his career, when his betting relations
had extended to the patricians of the turf, Davis occasionally laid the
odds to an almost incredible amount against all the horses entered in
a race, and the greater favourite a horse became, the more willing was
the "Leviathan" to bet against it; on many occasions the sums he stood
to lose were really enormous in their amount.
Davis, like other bookmakers, had his fortunate and his unfortunate
races. The Derby, for instance, was one of the latter class of events;
he was never fortunate in transactions entered into in connection with
that race. Upon the occasion of Voltigeur winning the Blue Ribbon he
stood to lose nearly £40,000 on his list accounts, as well as having to
meet many liabilities for large sums in the ring and at Tattersall's
consequent on the victory of that horse. The non-success of Hotspur
in the great Epsom event cost him, he was wont to say, £50,000, while
the failure of Barbarian involved the disbursement of about a plum;
and in the year which was sacred to the victory of Teddington he
dropped a mint of money; one cheque alone written out and paid away on
the morning after the race was filled up for three times "five thou"
(£15,000). Again, the Derby victory of Daniel O'Rourke necessitated his
parting with £30,000, whilst one of Davis' bets on West Australian was
paid to Mr. Bowes, the owner of that horse, in the shape of a draft on
the London and Westminster Bank for the full amount.
These big sums, however, were not all loss; he had the amounts he
won over the other runners to aid him in paying them, and as was to
be expected, he came every now and then into the possession of great
gains; on one or two occasions he bagged £40,000 over a race; had that
not been so, he would have been unable to battle with the wholesale
losses he had sometimes to encounter. His business at one time was
quite remarkable in its extent; often in the ring he was mobbed by
people desirous of betting with him, from whom, on the days of popular
races, he received hatfuls of money. No matter what race-meeting he
might be attending, if the place where it was held was within a few
hours' reach of London, he made it his business to return, to ascertain
what was doing at his various lists, and to draw a cheque for the next
day's settlement; punctual payment was with him a rule from which he
never deviated.
As to the betting lists which were ultimately put down by the strong
hand of Parliament, Davis was not, as many have supposed, the
originator of them. They were "invented," if such a word may be used,
by Messrs. Drummond and Greville, who took care to let it be known they
kept a big balance at their bankers'. By the persistent display of "the
lists" (which were exhibited by many licensed victuallers in their
houses), betting, especially in London, extended among all classes,
as at some of the lists as little as sixpence was accepted. For the
benefit of those who do not know any better, it may be as well to
explain here that a "list" was a written or printed document containing
the names of the horses engaged in the particular race to be betted
upon, with a price affixed against the chance possessed by each animal.
Previous to the institution of the lists, the great body of the people
were pretty well contented with a ticket in a Derby or some other
sweepstake, of which a great number, at prices ranging from pence to
pounds, were drawn in London and the provinces, but more especially in
London, where there were then thousands organised, embracing most of
the popular handicaps, as well as the classic races--so called.
It was calculated that at one time more than seven hundred lists were
open in the great metropolis, most of them being "placed" in the
public-houses of the period. Betting on horse-racing by means of lists
became in time so popular and extensive as to attract the indignant
attention of many people, who conceived it to be a cause of degradation
and deep demoralisation. Lotteries of all kinds, big and little, had
been effectually suppressed by the strong arm of the law, but list
betting took the place of the lottery tickets with a vengeance.
The "Leviathan," although not himself the originator of the list system
of betting, was not long in seeing--being a ready money system--that
good fortune awaited that plan of turf speculation, and he accordingly
commenced business at a public-house in Serle Street, in the Strand,
known as the "Durham Arms," at which in the course of time so great a
trade was done (in liquor) as to enable the landlady to retire from
business within the course of two or three years. Davis was proprietor
of two or three lists, as also the originator of three or four for
which other persons ultimately became responsible. Publicans were well
pleased to allow betting lists to be shown in their houses--it was a
source of revenue to them, as few bets were made over which a pint
or two of beer was not consumed, so that landlords "made money," as
the saying goes, in the days of the lists, a list being an excellent
advertisement for every house in which it was hung up. The chief centre
of list betting was Long Acre, and in that street was to be found one
of the "Leviathan's" lists, and so great was the business done, that
not only was his own supervision necessary, but the aid of two or three
clerks became essential. Other "list masters" carried on a roaring
trade as well as Davis, but he was undoubtedly the leader in that
feature of the betting business of his time; "punctual payment with a
pleasant courtesy of words," was his motto, and that way of doing his
work soon made him king of the list men. No man engaged in betting was
ever more punctual in his payments than Davis. On various occasions
when he had lost big sums to gentlemen, he did not delay his payments
till the orthodox settling day, but would hand over a cheque for the
amount he had lost immediately after the race had been decided.
As was to be expected in such a money-making avocation as list betting
seemed to be, scores of the merest fortune hunters speedily entered
into the business, many of whom were utterly dishonest scoundrels who
pocketed all the money they could collect, and then on the decision of
some important race on which they had received large deposits, closed
their offices and were no more seen in their accustomed haunts.
Davis in time retired from business and lived for some years at
Brighton, where he died, leaving a sum of about £150,000 behind him.