254 RACING. 



professional backers earn a very good living by it, and many of 

 course are broke, but their ruin has no deterrent effect upon 

 others \ fresh hands are always appearing on the scene, and 

 the extinction of the species is not likely to occur before the 

 millennium. 



The backer in a small way, who bets in small sums, though 

 he may bet frequently, does not count ; his investments in no 

 way affect the market, and no one grudges him such success 

 as he may achieve. He has this pull over the heavy punter, 

 that he can afford to wait, as there is always time to make 

 such small wagers as he deals in up to the fall of the flag. 

 There are many men of this class, too, who earn a few 

 hundreds a year, and many more who annually lose a similar 

 amount. . 



The one class of backer whose interests are persistently 

 overridden or ignored is yet after all the one who alone has 

 any real claim to sympathy, and to protection if the law could 

 afford it to him. This is the class which consists of men who 

 own racehorses whether as a matter of business or pleasure, 

 signifies not one iota. 



They bear the expense and the risk of the most precarious 

 pursuit in the world, and to them rightfully belong the fruits 

 of success. What is actually their position ? The work done 

 by their horses is regularly touted, and as regularly described 

 with more or less accuracy in the newspapers. To this perhaps 

 there would not be so much objection were it not that trials 

 are equally watched and laid bare to the public ; for who when 

 he reads that ' Homer, y^Eschylus and Euripides were then 

 stripped, and, ridden by Archer, Watts, and Goater, were sent 

 six furlongs at their best pace,' does not know that Homer at 

 any rate came in first in a private spin ? though it seems that 

 such an announcement does not actually infringe the strict letter 

 of Racing Law. How it fares with the owner when personally 

 or by deputy he proceeds to the betting ring has already been 

 partially described. He must either take what his own knowledge 

 tells him is an utterly false price, or he must forego (according 



