154 A FARMER'S YEAR 



This was the second day of the Bungay Races, but I was only 

 in time for the last three events. About provincial race-meetings 

 there are many opinions, and my own, as a non-racing man, is 

 rather against them. To begin with, they encourage gambling ; 

 and as a person who has lost hard-earned money in various sport- 

 ing ventures, though not on horses, my attitude towards gambling 

 is, theoretically at any rate, severe. Apart from joking, there is no 

 doubt that betting does an immense amount of mischief — let those 

 who doubt it walk down the Strand and watch the news-boys on 

 the afternoon of any race-meeting — especially to novices who are 

 so unfortunate as to be successful in their first essay. All who 

 enter upon this field should pray for failure. I remember a 

 story that my late father used to tell me of how when he was 

 a boy he went to the Bath racecourse, and there lost a guinea, 

 which his father had given him, either to a gentleman who 

 manipulated a thimble and three peas, or to a bookmaker — I 

 forget which — and of how, then and there, he made up his mind 

 that it would be the last coin of his which was ever risked in this 

 fashion. Many a man who had won a guinea would have a 

 different tale to tell. 



If these meetings encouraged the breeding of good horses, and 

 if the prizes were in the main confined to the owners of animals 

 bred in the district, their desirability, to my mind, would be easier 

 to argue ; but, in fact, I believe that this is not the case. The 

 racers that appear on these local courses are for the most part 

 second or third class platers which travel from meeting to meeting 

 with their attendant crowd of professional jockeys and white-hatted 

 bookmakers. Against these very experienced persons the astute 

 and horsey gents of the neighbourhood, grooms who have saved a 

 little money and what not, pit themselves, and as a rule come off 

 second best. Indeed, as the late Mr. Barney Barnato is reported 

 to have said of the ' sound business man ' who thought that he 

 could see through and profit by the financial machinations of the 

 ' Magnates ' of the Kaffir Market — 'a snowflake in hell fire would 

 have a better chance.' Also, as my own experience shows me, 



