CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



dream now of taking £40,000 to £600 about each 

 of his five filHes for the Derby nearly a year before 

 the race, as did Sir Joseph Hawley. Such a scene 

 as is described in the glowing pages of Sybil — 

 accurate as are the details down to the lameness 

 of the bandaged winner, Phosphorus — seems to 

 modern sportsmen as grotesque a picture of the 

 eve of an Epsom contest as the recent melodrama 

 of The Whip at Drury Lane, or the description of 

 the betting on the race in Ouida's novel of Under 

 Two Flags. 



With very few exceptions betting is now confined 

 to the day of the race. A comparatively small 

 outlay brings a horse to a short price in the market 

 — a market ever apprehensive of some starting- 

 price manoeuvre. Cramped odds lead to light 

 betting, and the restriction of business over the 

 rails. Indeed, in these times not a few attend- 

 ants of the members' enclosure witness race 

 after race without making a wager, and appear 

 to emulate the reputation of the late Lord 

 Falmouth. 



For these changed conditions the Sporting Press 

 is in part responsible. Thanks to the calculation 

 of chances " by our Special Correspondent " and 

 to the daily leading articles based upon training 

 reports and a searching analysis of form, the 

 public know as much about a horse as the ring 

 and frequently more than his owner. The recog- 

 nized organs of racing each morning enter fully 

 into the prospects of every horse that is likely to 

 run during the day. In this enterprise they are 

 followed by journals whose proprietors are endowed 

 with the profits from the sales of cocoa, which they 



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