'the druid's lodge confederacy' & 'the world's best horse'.

​The aforementioned title in the above is an excellent racing book; a book its author Paul Mathieu can rightly be proud of writing. I do not agree though that it is either ‘One of the finest racing books it has been my good fortune to read’, the Irish Independent’ opinion. Or, ‘One of the best racing books ever written. A True classic’, the Horse and Hound’s judgement. Over the top hyperbole is designed to snare the potential purchaser and 100% of the time will succeed. My objection to ‘over the top’ hyperbole by reviewers is that the public cannot know if their conclusion is heart-felt and truly honest or given as a result of a favour repaid or payment of some kind. I was born a sceptic and nothing in my long life has changed my natural-born inclination to look on the shady-side of life.
But let me repeat myself: ‘The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy’ by Paul Mathieu is an excellent edition to my racing shelves. I shall never regret its purchase.
I think if I came to this book with no knowledge of the accomplishments and legend of Druid’s Lodge and its architects who between them, amazingly, made racing pay, I may rate this book in accordance with its reviewers but through other sources most of what is in the book was known to me and so the element of surprise was lacking. But it is wonderfully and skilfully written.
Very often the main characters of such a book sit as quietly on the published page as they did when discovered and nudged into wakefulness in the archival research documents in which they had languished for many a long year. Yet at Mathieu’s command they walk and breath throughout the narrative and though you might not have got on with them in life, you find yourself at the conclusion of the book sympathetic to them and wishing they had lasted longer in the sport than they had. They were, it has to be admitted, a ruthless confederacy, as can be gauged by their policy of locking-up their stable staff at night and reading their post in case any of them let slip, wilfully or carelessly, any stable secrets. It wouldn’t happen these days, of course, health and safety would see to that. Pre-1st World War, though, anyone citing health and safety considerations would have been manhandled towards either the muck-heap or the nearest roadside ditch.
Hackler’s Pride, of course, the two-times Cambridgeshire winner, was known to me, what did come as an eye-opener was that Aboyeur, the winner, perhaps fortunate winner, of the Suffragette’s Derby, was owned come Derby Day by Percy Cunliffe, perhaps the only Derby winner to have gone through four hands. Bred by T.K.Laidlaw, Aboyeur was first bought by a James Daly who passed him on to Holmer Peard, Irish vet and manager of Cork Park racecourse and one of the five Druid’s Lodge confederates. Peard then sold him to Cunliffe and Wigan, two of his associates at Druid’s Lodge.
If asked, I would have said that the confederates gained their biggest betting coups via Hackler’s Pride, but though his associates couldn’t visualise the 100/1 shot covering himself in glory at Epsom, Cunliffe, though as surprised as any by the eventual result, thought Aboyeur could be placed and backed him throughout the preceding winter in small amounts, ‘fun bets’ as he described his interest. It is said Cunliffe scooped 2-million-pounds. 
All backed substantially, the confederates won four Cambridgeshires, two Jubilee Handicaps, the Eclipse, the Lincoln, Wokingham, the Hunt Cup and, of course, the Epsom Derby.
And yes, Cunliffe, the city financier, Purefoy, the West End impresario, Forester, the celebrated huntsman, Holmer Peard, the Irish vet and Wigan, the quietly-spoken man of independent means, did make racing and gambling pay. 

I have included in this piece ‘The World’s Best Horse’ by Lady Wentworth. A misjudged purchase on my part, I must admit.
I hoped, as it came to be with ‘Passports To Life’ by Harry Llewellyn, that it would stay on the shelf unread for several years and that when I got round to it I would be amazed what a wonderfully readable book it would be. And it may be, to the right reader. You see, despite a jacket illustration depicting the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Mont Tremblant and on an inner page what I take to be a painting of Steve Donoghue on a rather excitable colt, ‘The World’s Best Horse’ is most certainly not a racing book. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
If you wish to know about Battle horses. Light Cavalry, the Modern Draught Horse, racing in Arabia or Egypt, Pintos, Hackneys, the Widge Beast, Norwegian, Rhum, Dales or Fell ponies, this is undoubtably the book for you. And it does have a chapter on the antecedents of the modern thoroughbred. One swallow, though, doth not a summer make!
There is, though, one photograph in the book that has to be seen to be believed. It is Palomino stallion with ‘abnormal mane and tail’. The description ‘abnormal’ does not do the length and thickness of the mane and tail justice. It is a wonder of nature. How the horse could walk without being tripped by its mane or tail is difficult to understand.