RACING IN THE 'PROVINCES: 91 



one man in fifty ever really sees, not one in twenty cares about 

 seeing. The Oaks is nearly as popular with holiday-makers as 

 the Derby, and both in spring and summer there are many 

 other stakes, notably the City and Suburban and Grand Prize, 

 well worth winning, which will always draw good fields, the 

 facilities for betting being unlimited. 



Yet Epsom is the very home of discomfort. The managers 

 may indeed have achieved the proverbially difficult feat of 

 getting a quart into a pint pot, but at the same time they have 

 succeeded in providing for their patrons the maximum of 

 inconvenience with the minimum of enjoyment. The stands 

 are arranged so as to render locomotion almost impossible. 

 The bear-pit in front of the weighing-room is hardly large 

 enough for the first and second horses in each race, let alone 

 their attendants and the bystanders. It is suffocating in 

 sunshine, and always dusty, except in wet weather, when it is 

 little better than a well ; the private boxes are hot a7id draughty ; 

 of the means of access thereto, let those who have experienced 

 the horrors of that * middle passage' on Derby day bear 

 witness ; while the journey up the course from weighing-room 

 to paddock — an expedition, be it remarked, which must be 

 undertaken on foot by every jockey and trainer who has to 

 ride in or saddle for a race — is simply a hideous struggle with 

 an unsavoury crowd. 



Yet even at Epsom there is, at least for the upper class of 

 race-goers, a promise of better things to come. 



The Private Stand — ' Rous's Stand ' it was called, what 

 time that amiable despot arrogated to himself the sole right of 

 according admission thereto — was long since found of far too 

 limited accommodation to serve the needs of the actual members, 

 not to speak of the numerous foreigners who, belonging to the 

 European, American, or Australian Jockey Clubs, are admitted 

 as a matter of course, or of the still greater number of popular 

 and eligible racing men who are anxious to have access to the 

 one place, inconveniently crowded though it may be, where it 

 is practicable to bet and possible to see a race. 



