Had Mr. F. Swindell chosen to take pen in hand in order to narrate
his experiences of racing, and to indite notices of the turf men with
whom he had business or other relations, he might have produced a book
of more than ordinary interest. Although six years have elapsed since
the death of this "Napoleon of the turf," as he was called by some of
his admirers, his memory is kept green in racing circles by frequent
references to his achievements in connection with many of the turf
transactions of his day. As Mr. Swindell had moved in sporting circles
for a period of half a century, evidence of his sayings and doings is
by no means scarce. In his time he had a finger in many pies, and as
he left personal estate at the date of his death to the value of over
£140,000, it may be taken for granted that the transactions he managed
or took part in were somewhat profitable.
In his earlier days Mr. Swindell, as he used often enough to tell in
his own racy way and in good honest "Lancashire lingo," experienced a
good deal of rough weather. "It's a pretty bad case, lad, when thou
wants a shilling and doesn't know where to look for it." Frederick
Swindell was born in the town of Derby, and learned his father's craft
of bell-hanging, by which he made a living for some time in Manchester,
in which city he speedily acquired a taste for cock-fighting and other
sports, particularly horse-racing, by which in after years he was
destined to court fortune both as bookmaker and commissioner, and also
as an owner of horses on his own account. It was chiefly in his early
Manchester days that he came "through the hard," as he designated his
then condition, and felt the lack of money so much; like many other
turf adventurers in their beginning, he was poor one day and rich
another; "just as luck fell, lad." On one occasion he became bankrupt
over a cock-fight at Liverpool--so impoverished, in fact, as to be left
without a coin to pay for either supper or bed, and with the certainty
that no breakfast would await him in the morning; but next day he was
rolling in what, in the circumstances, may be called riches. Having
previously backed a horse to win him a hundred pounds--the animal was
Charles XII., which, in winning the Liverpool Cup, won for Swindell
the amount named--he enjoyed his first taste of fortune in what he
then "thowt big money." A different fate befell him on one occasion
at Newcastle-on-Tyne while looking on the race for the Northumberland
Plate. For that race he had made two wrong moves which told heavily
against his pocket; he laid to lose a good "bit of brass" over the
horse that won, thinking it a "stiff one," and also backed one that, as
it appeared in the sequel, had no pretensions to win; "and lads," he
used to say, in telling the story, "a fellow that was on the winning
nag and were standing at my back, smashed in my hat. Oh, it were cruel,
but that chap had backed the winner."
In time, after experiencing many of the bitters, and also a few of
the sweets that are incidental to the "great game," Swindell resolved
to make London his place of residence; and having experienced a run
of luck at one or two meetings, found himself in possession of as
much money as enabled him to begin business as landlord of a West End
public-house. It was situated near Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, and
was a favourite resort of the gentlemen's servants of that aristocratic
district of London. The business flourished exceedingly. Many of those
who frequented the house were men endowed with sporting tastes, and
most of them keen bettors. Swindell laid liberal odds to his customers,
and as a few of them were in the service of gentlemen who owned a
horse or two, the landlord not infrequently, by carefully noting
the investments of these men, was able to do a remunerative stroke
of business on his own account. On the occasion of the visit of a
celebrated owner of blood stock to Newmarket to witness a trial for an
important event, Swindell came to know the result from that gentleman's
butler, who obtained particulars of the trial from the lady's-maid, who
had read the letter sent to the gentleman's wife, giving full details
of what the horse had accomplished.
Many similar circumstances occurred from time to time. The information
just referred to was the means of Swindell adding nearly a thousand
pounds to his bank account; the butler also made a satisfactory amount,
while the lady's-maid was rewarded by having presented to her a
valuable diamond and emerald ring. The reputation acquired by Swindell
as a prompt payer speedily gained him the patronage of some of the West
End betting tradesmen, and in time of the gentlemen whose servants
he had hitherto done business with. Accurate accounts and punctual
settlements helped to increase business, so that the bookmaker obtained
permission to call at some of the clubs in order to do a little betting
with "the swells," and to several of these gentlemen Swindell never
hesitated to reveal any really good thing he knew; but not, of course,
till he had served himself. This practice gained him many friends,
and was the means of greatly improving his business by increasing his
connection, one gentleman recommending him to another, and all who did
business with him were pleased with his quiet, staid, respectful, but
never servile manner. Mr. Swindell knew his place and kept it, which
some of his contemporaries and many of his successors failed in doing.
With increasing experience of racing matters, and having a clear
head, and being of sober habits, Mr. Swindell was not long in finding
his services in demand as an adviser in some of the momentous turf
affairs of the time. Crockford, with whom at times he used when he
was making a book to cover his liabilities in the case of horses that
he had overlaid, or backed one or two that he thought likely to win,
gave him a word or two of recommendation, which resulted in his being
occasionally employed to execute commissions on behalf of owners of
horses who for good reasons did not wish to appear as backers of
their own animals. Among the many who ultimately took him into their
confidence were Mr. Merry, of Thormanby and Doncaster celebrity, and
Sir Joseph Hawley. Success usually rewarded the efforts of Mr. Swindell
when he undertook to carry through the kind of work which has been
indicated. Having a very large connection among bookmakers, he was
enabled to work the commissions he was entrusted with to the best
advantage, and when the time came that those laying the odds became
alarmed at being "had," he was able to obtain a choice of men to work
for him, so that he could remain in the background and pull the strings
quite as effectively as if he were acting openly in his own person.
This is how he "worked the oracle" when he was entrusted by an owner
with a big job in the handicap line--and that was the line he liked
best, as it was in that description of race there was most room to do
such an amount of business as would result in the winning of a large
sum of money. As soon as he knew the name of the horse and the race for
which it was to be backed, he would enter into consultation with one
or other of his bookmaking acquaintances in order to devise a plan of
campaign. The arrangement usually made was that the more responsible
country bookmakers, _i.e._, those in the larger provincial towns and
cities, should be communicated with, and be asked to lay the odds
against "so and so" to a specific amount and at a given price, or no
limit might be given in the matter of price; but a particular hour was
generally named at which the commission was desired to be executed by
the bookmaker or other appointed agent, so that all the money required
was usually obtained by this plan of doing the work. In the course of a
day it would become known that a very heavy commission had been worked
on behalf of "so and so," for the "such and such" handicap, and in
consequence the odds against that horse would be quoted at a rapidly
lessening figure, much to the chagrin of those who had laid the larger
or longer rates of odds, and who, awakening to what had happened, were
desirous themselves of backing the horse so as to lessen the sum they
would require to pay in the event of its winning the race it had been
backed for. Persons who are employed to do commissions get, as a matter
of course, to know "the strength of them," and if they fancy the horse
has a good chance they help themselves pretty liberally to a share of
the money at the highest rate of odds.
Fortune seemed on occasion to play into the hands of Mr. Swindell as if
no one else deserved a turn. He was the first to learn from Sir Joseph
Hawley that Beadsman would be his best horse for the Derby, that colt
having beaten Fitzroland, who had become a prime favourite for the
Blue Ribbon from having won the Two Thousand Guineas. "Put me £1,000
on Beadsman at the best odds you can obtain," said Sir Joseph, and
Swindell was able the next day to tell the lucky baronet that he had
obtained £18,000 to the stake authorised. "All right," was the reply;
"now help yourself, it is a good thing." And so it proved, as Beadsman,
beating twenty-two competitors, won the Derby of 1858, and that horse
was the sire of Blue Gown, which ten years later placed another big
stake to the credit of the noble baronet.
The turf transaction which gave Mr. Swindell his first good "lift"
as a manager of racing events was his manipulation of Chanticleer, a
horse that won the Goodwood Stakes in 1848, a race on which there
was at one period a great deal of betting. That being so, a heavy
commission was executed at the request of Mr. Merry, and so much was
the horse's chance esteemed both by owner and commissioner, despite
the heavy weight he had to carry, that still more money was put on
his chance; but in spite of the well-known fact that Mr. Merry had
backed Chanticleer to win a big sum, his price in the market never
"shortened," which being contrary to the usual state of affairs, caused
Mr. Swindell a great deal of uneasiness. After thinking the matter over
for a few days, he came to the conclusion that the jockey who had been
engaged to ride the horse had been tampered with, and having stated
the grounds of his suspicion to Mr. Merry, that gentleman assented to
the changing of the jockey at the last minute. Then it became patent,
from the frantic efforts of certain bookmakers to back the horse, that
the suspicions of the commissioner were well founded, for ridden by C.
Marlow, who had been quietly engaged by Swindell, Chanticleer won the
race as had been expected by those interested he would do.
When, at the ripe old age of seventy-four years, Mr. Swindell died,
worth, as was carefully chronicled at the time, £146,057, there began
to percolate through the columns of the sporting journals a series
of anecdotes illustrative of his career. But these cannot be drawn
upon here; in fact, many of the circumstances attending his work are
embodied in the foregoing slight narrative.
Although on the whole fortunate in his speculations, Mr. Swindell
received, as he himself was wont to tell, "many a facer"; and had the
misfortune oftener than once to see a good thing that would have been
worth thousands to him vanish just as he was about to realise it. He
took such reverses with his wonted equanimity, having the comfort of
knowing that his bank account was still in a good condition, and no one
could determine from his manner how he was affected; Swindell was not
in the habit of wearing his heart on his sleeve.
One of the many stories that went the round was the following: "Mr. J.
M. Stanley had arranged with Swindell to back Porto Rica for the Two
Thousand Guineas, supposing that horse's trial proved satisfactory.
Wright, at that time a well-known betting agent, used to publish
a little book of forthcoming events. Swindell was on a racecourse
when he received a telegram instructing him to back a certain number
in Wright's guide for the Guineas. He looked at the little book,
but mistook his instructions, thinking they were intended for Lord
Stanley's colt by Orlando-Canezou. The two colts, one belonging to Lord
Stanley, and the other to Mr. J. M. Stanley, were entered one after
the other in Wright's book, and Swindell mistaking one for the other,
sent his commissioner to back Lord Stanley's horse. Now this colt was
a dark one, had not been mentioned in the betting quotations, and had
never yet run in public. With a puzzled expression on his face, the
commissioner came back to Swindell, and inquired if any mistake had
been made, as the bookmakers seemed over-anxious to lay against the
Canezou colt. Master Frederick, on again consulting Wright's book, at
once saw he had 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 1. 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.