AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 



491 



until Catterick. That same year I was appointed judge 

 at Newcastle and several other places." 



" There's been a great deal in the papers of late 

 about handicapping ? " 



" I have done a deal of handicapping in my time. 

 Many a time I've had to sit up till twelve o'clock at 

 night and be up at five o'clock the next morning to get 

 through the work. Talking about York, I was officially 

 connected with York for thirty years. Even now I'm 

 a member of the Eace Committee, but I cannot go in 

 for that sort of thing now at my tune of hfe. At York 

 I used to be a handicapper, clerk of the course, and 

 judge as well. No doubt it is right that a man ought 

 to have nothing else to do but to handicap ; he should 

 not have any other office to distract him. Great changes 

 have come over racing in my time. A £50 stake was a 

 wonderful thing in my younger days — about sixty years 

 ago. We used to have two meetings at York, for which 

 the added money was £3000. Now we give over £8000. 

 Racing is now getting to a nice pitch. It is surprising 

 the quantity of racing there is now to what there used 

 to be. I don't think there are so many good men racing 

 in the present day as there were in the old times. Nor 

 do I think horses stay so well. Owners are more for 

 short courses now than formerly. Why, I have seen 

 four-mile heats, three heats for a race, at York. 



" I commenced at Doncaster the year that Voltigeur 

 and Russborough ran a dead heat. They ran the dead 

 heat off the same afternoon, and the people broke on 

 to the course, overpowering the police. Lord Zetland 

 came to me and said, ' The race cannot be run with the 

 people swarming all over the course.' I said, ' My lord, 

 I cannot help it ; I cannot get them away, and the police 

 are powerless.' Nearly all the way down the straight 



