CRAZY ON BACKING 'EM 



insufficient experience of practical racing, and in some 

 cases tlieir ignorance is sublime. Occasionally there 

 is a new backer or two coming into the ring. Some 

 start with the reputation of having made a lot of 

 money in some enterprise or other, and it is wonderful 

 how a certain section of bookmakers will give them 

 credit, but sooner or later there are missing accounts 

 on settling day. Then again there have been men 

 who, after years of abstinence from backing horses, 

 will suddenly break out. Many of us knew a pleasant 

 little man who used to be at Mrs Barker's, at the 

 Queen's Hotel, Southport. He took a sudden craze 

 before his death to dissipate a young fortune in a few 

 weeks. He was always eccentric, I thought, and for 

 a time no one believed that he was real crazy. 



Others who have contributed to the profits of the 

 ring have been those who, driven to the last stage of 

 desperation, and robbing their clients, stealing their 

 master's money or what not, have taken the last re- 

 maining hundreds which they could get hold of, and 

 have gone racing with it. When eventually they have 

 been brought to justice they have cried that their 

 " position was brought about by getting on the turf." 

 It is a canting wail which goes down with some, and 

 especially anti-gamblers, who use such creatures as 

 examples of how racing can bring about ruin, but the 

 losers do not for the most part get into it until they have 

 been thoroughly dished in trying to get rich quick at 

 other games, at others' expense. They take a bit of 

 ready money with them, and as a rule the end of the 

 decline is soon reached, but those on a racecourse do 

 not push them down. These broken reeds are simply 

 one of a casual public who put their money on and 

 draw if they win, but from insufficient knowledge — or 

 ordained by Fate — lose what they have left. We are 



T ■ 289 



