Just Another Ringer - Peaceful William also known as Stellar City

Ringers & Rascals: One horse was dead and one was alive, but which was which?

Byline: David Ashforth

Perhaps Jack Morris just had time to watch Pan II win the Ascot Gold Cup before Detective Superintendent John Black arrested him. Earlier the same day, June 14, 1951, Black had driven to Kennett House at East Ilsley, near Newbury, and arrested Edward Hill. The two men were close friends, Morris was a 50-year-old former amateur jockey, who had ridden in the 1939 Grand National, while Hill was a 45-year-old jockey turned trainer. Both were gamblers and Hill admitted using Morris to place his bets. "If you have a person in the stable who can get your bet on without the bookmakers knowing," he explained, "he might return very fair odds." If you can arrange for a good horse to run in the name of a bad one, you might fare even better.

In May 1949, Hill and Morris travelled to Ireland. They visited Edward Martin Quirk's yard and bought his wife's promising two-year-old, Stellar City, for pounds 1,400. A week later, they met Edward Callaghan at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin and agreed to buy another, much less promising, two-year-old called Peaceful William for pounds 325. The journey from Ireland had a miraculous effect on the horses' identities. When they arrived at East Ilsley, Stellar City had lost both the white star on his forehead and his ability, both of which had been acquired by Peaceful William.

Early in June, Peaceful William, partnered by jump jockey Harry Sprague, was given a severe five-furlong gallop, with Flat jockeys Arthur Wragg and Ken Gethin partnering his rivals. While their mounts were each carrying about 8st 6lb, Peaceful William was burdened with 9st 12lb. Sprague, now a spritely 82, remembers it well. "I'd ridden for gambling stables all my life," he told me. "They knew I could keep my mouth shut. Morris rang to say they were thinking of running a decent two-year-old and wanted to have a gallop. At the gallops, he said, `That one's yours'. I thought, `God, that's a nice two-year-old'. I just won the gallop, by about three-quarters of a length."

There was one other matter to attend to. Hill made a mark on the noseband of a bridle and told his head lad, Lincoln Close, to take it to the saddler and have a leather disc sewn on to it. In 30 years working with horses, Close had never seen a bridle changed in that way. The disc neatly covered the white star on the face of the horse the staff knew as Peaceful William.

The stable's new star was unleashed at the humblest of levels, the five-furlong Trial Selling Plate at Carlisle on June 29, 1949. Sprague was riding at the meeting for Jack Reardon, an Epsom trainer. "Morris said to me, `I'll put you down for Peaceful William, because you're a jump jockey. When we get there, you say you're ill, and we'll put Gethin up'." Backed from 3-1 to evens favourite, Peaceful William won by a cosy length. The reward in prize-money was pounds 180 and a normal present to the jockey would have been about ten per cent of this, but Hill gave Gethin pounds 100.

He then ran him in another selling race at Yarmouth on July 6, when Arthur Wragg was given the ride. Backed from 6-1 to 5-2, Peaceful William, surprisingly, was beaten into third place.

When Edgar Britt was given his turn on Peaceful William, at Lanark on July 21, he won by five lengths, having been backed from 6-1 to 2-1. Hill bought the winner in for 1,200gns, a record price for a selling race in Scotland, and gave Britt a present of pounds 100.

Wragg was understandably keen to ride Peaceful William in his next race, at Alexandra Park on August 22. When Hill told him that Peaceful William would not be running, Wragg accepted another ride. When he discovered that the horse was a runner, after all, he offered to abandon his ride in order to partner Peaceful William. Hill, fearful that the move would advertise the stable's confidence in the horse's chance, promised to compensate Wragg if Peaceful William won. Britt kept the ride, won by three lengths, at 3-1, and was given another pounds 100 present, while Wragg was given pounds 200.

Lilian Quirk was surprised that Stellar City had not yet resumed his racing career. She asked Hill why the horse hadn't run, and wasn't convinced by his explanation that Stellar City had pulled a muscle. It may have been her scepticism that eventually triggered an investigation. The horses' subsequent movements were difficult to untangle. According to Hill, in October 1949, Peaceful William was sent to Alfred Worsley, a breeder based in Chepstow, to be prepared for another season's racing. He was returned to Hill at the end of April 1950 but "turned sour, and turned a pig, and would not go on the Downs". Hill eventually sold the horse to a meatman, Albert Passey, but that was almost a year later, in February 1951.

Hill claimed to have sold Stellar City to Morris for pounds 1,200, a generous price for a horse who had been unable to race. Morris sent Stellar City to Les Hall, to race under Pony Turf Club Rules and, in January 1951, moved Stellar City to stables near Epsom. Other evidence suggested that Stellar City did not leave Hall until February and did not arrive at Tadworth until March.

One horse was dead and one alive, but which was which? In April 1951, while the police were investigating, Hill persuaded his head lad and three young apprentices to sign a photograph confirming that the horse in the picture, which had a white star, was Stellar City. It was true, it was Stellar City, but it was not the horse that Lincoln Close, Alan Harvey, and Dominic and John Forte had previously known as Stellar City. When Peaceful William was winning races, he was the one with the white star.

When they were required to give evidence, in June 1951, they told the truth. Maxwell Turner, for the prosecution, asked Close, "Thinking about it now, do you think the photograph you signed was the photograph of Stellar City, or not?" "I don't think it was," Close replied. He was followed by Harvey, an 18-year-old apprentice. "Do you think that the photograph which you signed was a photograph of Stellar City?" "No, sir, I don't." "Had the Stellar City which you knew a star at all?" "No." The horse sold to the meatman was the real Peaceful William.

In his summing up at the Old Bailey in October 1951 the Recorder observed, "Stellar City has survived the turmoil of the prosecution but Peaceful William perished in February 1951, and that was just when the police were getting active about this matter". Dodson also referred to Morris's bank statements, which revealed that, over a two-month period, pounds 30,000 had been paid in from successful bets. Ringing-in Stellar City for Peaceful William had been highly lucrative, but there was a price to be paid.

Hill and Morris were both found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison. In December, their application for leave to appeal was rejected and both were warned off by the Jockey Club.

Were they really bubbled by a 14 year old girl?

Oct 25th 1951 News Cutting