Newmarket, 81 



wear the unwhisperables — but it would be impertinent to 

 inquii^e, — and short habits (perfectly neat and lady-like), 

 rode splendidly, and were as excited as I sometimes am at 

 a cricket match, when I have a colt in a county eleven, and 

 I fancy it is the same with them about horses. No doubt 

 they know several of the horses from the time they were 

 foals, and have seen them galloped many and many a time, 

 and look on them as almost members of their own family. 

 I was reading in some book — " Post and Paddock," I 

 think — how the landlady of an inn, who was aroused in the 

 middle of the night by the news that some celebrated mare 

 had foaled, jumped out of bed and ran across the stable- 

 yard with nothing on but her night-shift, to see the new 

 arrival. Ay, and I can imagine how racing becomes a 

 passion, like anything else ; and how the better half of 

 creation take an immense interest in a noble horse for the 

 horse's sake. 



How the gentlemen of the press manage to report as 

 accurately and well as they do is a wonder to me. Their 

 only chance is being driven from one course to another and 

 writing in a brougham. It is hard work enough for them 

 to sit in a room on a cricket ground, and to note every over 

 and hit, and to furnish the admirable reports which they 

 publish each day in the summer, and which reports are the 

 next best thing to seeing the matches ; but rushing about 

 from the betting ring to the post and back again all over the 

 course, and writing their report in a carriage, must be very 

 hard and exhausting work. These are the men w^ho are the 

 bona fide sporting press. 



There now, I have jotted down my ideas of a most enjoy- 

 able place and a most enjoyable scene, for the benefit of 

 those who have never been, and I can promise them that, if 

 they don't want to go into the Stand, and are content with 

 an occasional good sandwich when hungry, and some good 



