BETTING. 255 



to the view he takes of racing) the pleasure and excitement of 

 speculation, or an opportunity of receiving a dividend on in- 

 vested capital with the result that if his horse wins he will be 

 openly derided by the jumpers on ; if beaten, and the fact of his 

 abstention from betting becomes known, he is almost told to 

 his face that he ' was not having a go.' 



This on a post-betting race ; in the rarer instances where 

 books are open for some time previous to an event, the public 

 are even more confident that every man's horse is their pro- 

 perty. ' Regardless of grammar (and of everything else) they 

 all cry that's him ! ' and in they dash where the owner, by 

 this time in no angelic frame of mind, has the gravest fears of 

 treading. 



Then, if in a fit of temper, or simply because he chooses 

 to wait for a more convenient season, he runs the pen through 

 the favourite's name, what an outcry arises ! How magnilo- 

 quently does ' Magpie ' of the ' Daily Stump,' or * Lurker ' of the 

 ' Weekly Liar,' discourse of the ' blow inflicted on the credit of 

 the Turf,' the ' bitter discouragement of staunch adherents,' the 

 ' nauseating transactions connected with the forthcoming race,' 

 the ' outrageous disregard of public rights ' ! Public rights ! The 

 public have two rights as regards betting, and two only : the first 

 is that an owner shall not directly or indirectly lay against his 

 own horse except for purposes of the most strictly fair and 

 straightforward hedging ; the second, that if a horse goes to the 

 post he shall, so far as lies in the power of his jockey, be made 

 to do his best and win if he can. 



Given these two conditions honourably fulfilled, the owner 

 is perfectly at liberty to do what seemeth good in his eyes. It 

 is true that, if he elects to sit and suffer, he will gain some tem- 

 porary popularity, should he set store by that very perishable 

 article. 



Hardly worth mentioning are the backers who come in for 

 a hit-or-miss dash at the ring * to go for the gloves,' as it 

 is called in Turf parlance. Stray individuals of this class do 

 periodically crop up, who for one or two meetings have a 



