CAUSE OF HIS RUIN 31 



rest of them. But generally he was content to put on 

 a couple of sovereigns ; and often his horses ran without 

 his having a shilling on them. If they were fortunate 

 enough to win, if only a 50 Plate, he was as pleased 

 as though he had won a thousand, not seeing or recog- 

 nising that in exposing a good horse he had thrown away 

 the chance of winning ten times that amount. On such 

 races, at all events, his winnings must have exceeded 

 his losses. In short, I may say he raced but a few 

 years, with a stud that might have been purchased and 

 kept the whole of the time for about 20,000, and, 

 judiciously managed, might have recouped its owner 

 both capital and expenditure and a large sum by way 

 of profit and did, in fact, as I have shown, return Mr. 

 Starkey more than this amount in stakes. And yet we 

 find the turf loaded with the opprobrium of having, in 

 this brief time, ruined an intelligent, generous, and 

 wealthy young man, for I do not think he was more 

 than twenty-six or twenty-seven at the time of his 

 collapse. 



We must look, therefore, to some other cause than 

 racing to find the source of this gentleman's unmitigated 

 ruin. I may observe that in one minor respect, and true 

 to his character, he never handled one shilling of his 

 winnings. The cost of training, stakes, and travelling 

 necessarily heavy, with now and then the loss of a bet 

 kindly put on for him by his trainer, would just nicely 

 balance the bill. He was thus saved the trouble of ever 

 having a debtor and creditor account submitted for his 

 inspection ; just as his trainer, Mr. T. Parr, was saved 

 the trouble of making out a document so complicated 

 and useless. Nevertheless, it is a regrettable incident 

 that, for the ease of one man, an account so amusing 

 and instructive should have been lost to the rest of the 



