78 The Book of the Horse. 



the blood-horse, rejected or expelled from the turf, has leavened the whole mass of our riding 

 and light draught-horses with an infusion of blood that makes them unequalled in every 

 other country for quality and size. Unfortunately, at the present day too many of these cast 

 blood sires are affected with hereditary diseases. 



THE SUPPORTS OF THE TURF. 



In the preceding pages the object has been to describe the turf in its present state — an 

 institution which has in fact created the blood-horse — not to dwell upon vain projects for 

 reforming a mode of gambling which if it did not suit the national taste would not exist. To 

 pretend that modern race-meetings are held for the purpose of improving the breed of horses 

 is rank hypocrisy. They do indirectly improve the quality of horses ; but races are held, 

 and some i^6o,000 awarded in stakes in the seven Newmarket meetings alone, in reality to 

 afford the world of betting men an opportunity of winning and losing immense sums. 



Amongst the layers of wagers on horse-races perhaps the greatest contributors to the 

 gains of the professional " bookmakers " are not confirmed gamblers. The taste of the English 

 for everything connected with horses leads thousands of many classes, from the peer and 

 county gentleman down to the farmer, the tradesman, and that very sporting tribe the domestic 

 servant, to risk a few shillings, or a few pounds, or a few hundreds, on the result of a national 

 or local race, just as they would play whist, bezique, piquet, cribbage, or a round game for 

 a trifling stake ; without anything of the ardour and determination of those habitues of the 

 London and Paris clubs, to whom every day seems long until they can sit down before a 

 green cloth and cut the cards. Although the stakes of these amateurs are individually 

 insignificant, they form a considerable item in the winnings of the professional bookmaker. 



Amongst the owners of race-horses are a few — at the present day four or five — who breed, 

 train, and run them purely for sport, and never risk enough in bets to press upon the income 

 of a month or a day. 



Besides the mere amateurs who only bet on two or three races in the year, there are those 

 who annually and systematically risk a portion of their income for the purpose of improving 

 it — ^10, £2ij (technically a pony), or i^ioo; such calculating bettors are to be found amongst 

 the younger sons of good family and officers of the army. The navy is not much given to the 

 turf, although the great god of the silversmiths of that Ephesus, Albert Gate, was for 

 many years an admiral. Finally there is the never-ceasing, annually-recruited army of 

 born gamblers, male and female, high and low, who have by the progress of legislation been 

 gradually squeezed out of all the ways of risking their money which their grandfathers and 

 great-grandfathers enjoyed, and driven into the betting-ring. Lotteries, once a source of con- 

 sidt;rable revenue to the State, have been abolished within the memory of veterans of the turf 

 In the early years of George III. the royal family played faro on birthday nights, and all 

 courtiers were expected to risk a few gold pieces. 



When Mr. Wilberforce entered public life as a young, a rich, and unconverted man, at every 

 club in St. James's hazard was played, and at the private houses of "ladies of great fashion 

 faro- banks were open every night of the season. Of Charles James Fo.x it was said, pleasantly, 

 and not as a reproach, that he could have made a fine income at whist and piquet, but he 

 preferred to ruin himself at hazard, declaring that " next to the pleasure of winning at hazard, 

 the greatest pleasure was losing." Everybody played ;. many fine hereditary estates pa.sscd away 

 from noble to obscure owners ; those who objected to play were ridiculed as " Methodists." 



General Scott — two of whose daughters married, one the statesman George Canning, and the 



