24S RACING. 



beginning to overcast the vitality and threaten the future pros- 

 perity of our great national sport. 



It must never be forgotten that, as was lately remarked by 

 a writer of authority, ' the greatest drawback to the Turf is, and 

 will always be, that the most inflexibly honest master — such, 

 for instance, as the late Lord Glasgow— and the most upright 

 of trainers, are both of them necessarily and entirely at the 

 mercy of a lad who is frequently born in the gutter, whose 

 education has generally been utterly neglected, whose principle 

 is sorely tried, if not radically sapped, by his early surround- 

 ings and associates, and who is girt about with dangerous 

 temptations to do wrong as countless as the motes that dance 

 in the sunbeam.' No trainer of experience will attempt to 

 deny the impossibility of detecting by ocular observation 

 whether the jockey whom he employs 'drops anchor' or does 

 his best to win a race. Under these circumstances, it neces- 

 sarily follows that very large fortunes, won in a few years by 

 jockeys who commenced without a sixpence, must always be 

 viewed with jealousy and suspicion by the outside public. 



Fortunes of this nature have been swollen of late years by 

 the prodigious and, as some think, disproportionate presents 

 lavished upon fortunate riders who win great races. In his 

 ' Racehorse in Training,' William Day, with fifty years of 

 racing experience to guide him, denounces the enormous re- 

 wards now given to jockeys with an energy and directness to 

 which nothing can be added. In this connection we are re- 

 minded of an incident which happened at Newmarket within 

 living memory. In 1S50, the late Earl of Airlie was the owner 

 of a racehorse named Clincher, which was trained by Henry 

 Wadlow, and subsequently started first favourite for the Derby 

 won by Voltigeur. Clincher was brought out to run at the 

 Craven Meeting against a fairly good horse, called Compass, 

 belonging to the late Duke of Richmond. In a race across 

 the flat. Clincher, ridden by Frank Butler, gave 6 lbs. and an 

 easy beating to Compass. Immediately after the race. Lord 

 Airlie rode up to Butler upon the Heath and presented him 



