44 RACING. 



bribed in every way for information respecting the horses 

 they have ridden in trials, or which are under the charge of 

 their employers. No trick is too low for these touts, and 

 their footing being estabhshed, it is not easy to see how they 

 can be eliminated from the racing community by any edict 

 of the authorities, more especially while the heedlessness of 

 owners continues to foster the evil. Furthermore, companies 

 of bookmakers have started sporting journals, attached to the 

 staff of which are local touts, i.e. men who reside in the prox- 

 imity of every training stable in England, and whose business 

 it is to report on the daily work done by the horses in training, 

 though these reports are often so highly imaginative as to appear 

 hardly worth paying for. 



The plea of justification for the system is, of course, that 

 the enormous number of people who take an interest in the 

 betting business of the turf * require the information' — that 

 ' racehorses, like statesmen, are public property,' &c. &c. ; but 

 when these reports are often so completely and utterly mis- 

 leading, when we see a horse which has not been out of the 

 stable for weeks quoted as having galloped over distances vary- 

 ing from six furlongs to two miles, and that, all this notwith- 

 standing, the inner circle of the betting-ring are informed as 

 to the true state of the case as well as, if not better than, the 

 actual owner, how can it be argued that the journals which 

 publish these reports are worked as much for ' public utility ' 

 as for a special gang of speculators who ignore the false state- 

 ments, provided they themselves are properly informed ? 



Complaints have been rife for some years past of the false 

 prices quoted in these journals, and there can be little doubt 

 that in many instances the prices are false. Ask any leading 

 and independent bookmaker the meaning of these long quota- 

 tions weeks before a big race, the answer will almost invariably 

 be, ' There has been hardly a bet made on the race.' But though 

 no bets may have been made by any person acquainted with 

 racing, these quotations do undoubtedly serve to tempt the 

 ignorant to invest money on horses they believe to be backed, 



