CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



Newmarket on the horses of the ancients or on 

 the VirgiHan meaning of argutum caput : 



Ardua cervix, 

 Argutumque caput, brevis alvus, obesaque terga, 

 Luxuriatque toris animosum pectus. ' 



but he mastered the rules of racing and reformed 

 them. He instituted a new system of starting, 

 and by posting a man with a flag directly in view 

 of the jockeys, who were ordered to go the moment 

 the flag fell, he alleviated the difficulties of the 

 starter and hindered the fraud of the dishonest 

 rider. It must have been an interesting spectacle 

 when Bentinck, to test the value of his plan, took 

 the flag himself at York races, and attired after 

 the manner of D'Orsay, and in a vest and cravat 

 which rivalled Beau Brummell, started a field of 

 twenty-eight in the Great Yorkshire Handicap. 

 The conditions of a race-meeting of to-day are 

 practically due to him. He enforced punctuality 

 upon stewards, trainers, and jockeys. He con- 

 trived the scheme of hoisting on a board the names 

 and riders — by numbers corresponding to those 

 on the race-card — of the field about to start for 

 a race ; and, for the further benefit of the spectators, 

 he introduced the practice of walking horses in the 

 paddock before their engagements, and cantering 

 them past the stands en route to the starting-post. 

 Upon defaulters and swindlers he waged war 

 without mercy. To a man who owed him £4,000 

 over a bet, and who offered him los. in the pound 

 and the remainder in instalments, he wrote as 

 follows : " Sir, — No man has a right to bet if he 

 cannot pay should he lose. The sum I want of 



I Virgil, Georgics, iii. 80. Conf. PiU, by Lord Rosebery, p. 32. 



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