According to the Biographical Encyclopaedia of British Flat Racing "His methods were based on the corruption of trainers, jockey and stable employee and for some years he was a powerful influence for evil in the sport".
[1] Ridsdale came from humble beginnings, but stories about his early life vary; some say he was working in a Doncaster hotel as a boot-black and others that he was a groom in York.
Ridsdale worked as a groom and became involved with Lambton's horse racing and gambling, getting to know jockeys, trainers and the betting market.
He, like Ridsdale, owned race-horses and in 1827, he purchased The Derby winner Mameluke and entered the horse into the St Leger Stakes.
The race was chaotic with several false starts and the eventual winner, Matilda, owned by Robert Edward Petre, beat Gully's horse by a length.
These were both entered for the Derby and the race, run in controversial circumstances, went to St. Giles, winning in the process very large sums of money for the connections.
Ridsdale refused to believe him and this angered Wilson, who visited a local gunsmith where he procured a matched pair of pistols with ammunition.
He created a stud farm of over 320 acres with stabling, loose boxes, blacksmiths shop, shoeing shed, saddle rooms, coach house, granaries, barns and staff accommodation.
[8] One of the horses that Mulatto served was Arcot Lass (owner by Mr Cattle) and the resulting foal was Bloomsbury, who became the 1837 Derby winner.
After Bloomsbury won the Derby the owner of the second placed horse lodged a protest due to these discrepancies, but this was overruled and the result stood.
Sadly in 1835, at the age of 17 the lad was killed in a shooting accident when the trigger on his gun becoming snagged on a branch; this event happened just months before Ridsdale's bankruptcy.
The newspaper reports immediately after his death said that he died in his lodgings after dining out with friends, however, nearly all stories about him since have said he was found dead in a stable with only three coins in his pocket.