passion with him; he had a string of well-bred hunters from which he derived by occasional sales a handsome profit; he bred and trained at his place other horses as well, and was never without a hundred or two with which to accommodate any of his friends who had run short of money. There can be no question but that Robert Ridsdale had a finger in several of the dirty pies that were cooked when he was active on the turf. Many a well-planned victory (and even better-managed loss) is said to have been due to his busy brain. His machinations were far-reaching, some of them taking a long time to mature; but when such events came off they generally resulted in the right way for Ridsdale, who was reputed at the time (1824) to have planned a way of winning a very large sum of money over the race for the St. Leger of that year. The story of "Jerry's victory" has been often told in turf circles and sporting journals. I shall, however, give it here in few words, as an example of racing fraud which unfortunately has, over and over again, proved successful. Jerry, the winner of the St. Leger of 1824, was the property of a Mr. Gascoigne, a well-known sportsman of his day; and the horse, ridden by Benjamin Smith, a famous jockey of his era, beat twenty-two competitors in the great struggle for the Blue Ribbon of the North. Jerry was to have been piloted in the race by one Edwards, a horseman of that time, but for good and sufficient reasons he was at the eleventh hour superseded in the saddle by Benjamin Smith, as will presently be shown. Croft, the trainer of the horse, was exceedingly confident of the ability of Jerry to win the St. Leger, and did not keep his opinion a secret; but, whilst the animal was being wound up for the occasion and was known to be doing all that was required of him on his training ground, pleasing both the owner and his friends by the style in which he did his morning gallops, he was apparently an undoubted victim of the "legs," who never tired of betting the odds against his chance of winning the race. All comers were readily accommodated, so that in the course of a few weeks, to the great astonishment of his trainer and owner, tens of thousands were industriously laid against Jerry's chance of winning.