RACING SERVANTS: OLD STYLE AND NEW. 103 



for the piper means being paid the keep of a racehorse is 

 now charged at fifty shillings per week, whatever may be the 

 inherent capabilities of the animal, and as this enhanced price 

 is not of itself sufficient to keep the furnaces at full blast, fuel 

 must be obtained from other quarters. 



Betting, of course, suggests itself as the first expedient, and 

 some of the trainers of the young school plank it down ' when 

 the time comes ' with a confident prodigality, and a cynical dis- 

 regard of previous form, by no means beneficial to their fair 

 fame. Few things, indeed, can be more gratifying to an owner, 

 when he has won a few hundreds at a nearly equivalent risk, 

 than to read in next morning's ' Sportsman ' the gleeful an- 

 nouncement that his astute servant had invested a thousand at 

 a remunerative rate of odds. 



Another method of providing for the budget latterly much 

 in favour with trainers is the system of purchasing yearlings at 

 public sales for the purpose of re-selling them, not only at a 

 profit, but with an added stipulation that the said young ones 

 shall remain where they are. This may seem, and, to a certain 

 extent is, a perfectly fair way of turning to account a talent for 

 the perception of immature merit in horseflesh ; but the draw- 

 back is that to make the game really pay the buyer must sell 

 as speedily as possible, and if the existing patrons of the stable 

 are unable or unwilling to purchase, fresh customers must be 

 found. Now there are many individuals of all classes, but 

 having one common characteristic, viz. that they are to the 

 last degree undesirable as partners in any sort of honest under- 

 takingwho are for ever on the look-out for an opportunity to 

 obtain a footing in any stable which they consider in luck, or 

 which may chance to contain a favourite for a big race. To 

 such men the value of the yearlings in question is often of small 

 moment ; they pay for and obtain a footing, of which they are 

 not slow to avail themselves according to their lights ; and should 

 there not be, as there too seldom is, a master employer of 

 means, influence, and determination to say 'If he comes in, / 

 go out,' a nest of rascality may be the result. 



