52 RACING. 



some of these courses is their limited circumference. As an 

 instance of this, the popular Sandown Park at once suggests 

 itself. True it is that under the modern licensing system a 

 course could never have been established there at all, and 

 those pleasant meetings would have been denied to us, owing 

 to the impossibility of obtaining a sufficiently extended area ; 

 on the other hand, we could not have regretted the unknown, 

 and it might well have happened that the originators would 

 have found some larger space whereon to display that liberal 

 and able management which has made Sandown the type of 

 comfort and convenience. 



With the exception of a straight five furlongs, the courses 

 here are too much on the turn fairly to test a horse's powers, 

 though there is full opportunity for skilled jockeys to display 

 their superiority in judgment of pace, provided always they are 

 not too much interfered with at the turns aforesaid. However, 

 within the last four years the Jockey Club has taken up the 

 subject, and none but really spacious courses are now allowed 

 to be enclosed, or, being enclosed, would be licensed. 



From time to time members of Parliament have attempted 

 to interfere with racing, and Bills for that purpose have been 

 brought before both Houses. Thus, in 1860, Lord Redesdale 

 introduced a measure in the House of Lords for the purpose of 

 fixing the lowest weight to be carried by horses in any race at 

 7 stone, but on the Jockey Club consenting to meet his 

 views half way, the Bill was withdrawn, and the minimum 

 weight established by Jockey Club rule at 5 st. 7 Ibs.. Loud 

 were the lamentations of many of the old school of racing men 

 at this innovation, as they averred, with some plausibility, that 

 to make a good jockey, a lad should be put on a horse as soon 

 as he could bestride one, and should have a chance given him 

 in races at his natural weight as soon as he had learnt to ride ; 

 and to this arbitrary impost they still attribute the present 

 scarcity of 'good boys,' a conclusion from the outset more or 

 less narrow-minded, as it is probable that other and more subtle 

 influences have caused the inefficiency of our light-weights, 



