IS NE^^^VIARKET dull ? 



One morning the veteran Martin Gurry turned on a 

 man he thought was saying too much and said : 

 " You don't know what you're talking about. Let me 

 tt'll you that Newmarket is better now than ever it has 

 been. Every sort of going is available for horses who 

 hiive need of different kinds of galloping. Those who 

 van complain of the present state of affairs do not 

 know that they are born." From my own experience 

 there is a good deal of discrimination displayed by 

 Mr Marriott, the official responsible. 



There can be a tremendous amount of enthusiasm 

 worked up by seeing the gallops and trials on the 

 Limekilns, but to go into raptures about the life at 

 Newmarket as a town is difficult; there are so few 

 distractions. When a man has the privilege to stay 

 in one or two private houses it is different. There 

 would be that complete repose after a spring or autumn 

 meeting was over, tea in the open hall with a bright 

 log fire burning, and the tacit understanding that no 

 horse talk was to take place until after dinner : it gave 

 relief. For years I used to finish my work, begun on 

 the racecourse, after tea and go to the post office. 

 There I would get the latest scratchings and entries 

 for any over-night races and wire off the column or 

 column and a quarter with the tips to London ; then 

 it was finished. That is all very well, but when it is 

 a question of sitting about in a hotel or having a walk 

 round the town conversing with good fellows and bores, 

 I can tell you that the gaiety of nations is not added 

 to, and it becomes a question whether we are really 

 engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, the carrying out 

 of ambition or only doing the proper duty as a racing 

 correspondent. Those who travel there and back 

 every day from town and sleep in their own beds have 

 the bulge over their fellows. 



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