y hROME Park. 95 



Brigliton or the Promenade des Anglais at Nice. Racecourses, we all know, differ all over the 

 world ; and if Jerome Park is unlike a park, it is certainly as much unlike an English race- 

 course as anything I ever saw. Still, it is a racecourse, if an invention ; races take place 

 there ; it is the temple of the American Jockey Club ; and is one of the pleasantest resorts 

 for a few hours' diversion a traveller could visit. 



"The club-house is quite an institution; it has dining-rooms, drawing-rooms, bed-rooms, 

 billiard-rooms, and a large ball-room, and, indeed, every luxury of a club and comfort of a 

 private dwelling. Visitors to the races eat their breakfasts here and their lunches, and some 

 stay to dine. After the racing is over, a ' German ' is gone through in the ball-room, to the 

 excellent music of a reed band ; and when the festivity is over, the drive back to New York 

 in the brightness of the harvest moon is found to be not the least pleasant part of the day's excite- 

 ment. Some perhaps will stay the night, or return the next morning to breakfast ; but no 

 matter when they go or come, the club is always open. 



" The racecourse consists of circuitous roads formed on a plateau beneath the club-house. 

 These roads, or tracks, wind round in a way something like a figure 8, and their surface is 

 like Rotten Row, though a little harder. One instantly asks why turf is not preferred to a 

 hard road ; and the answer readily given is that the loose earth road, hard as it is, is the 

 more suitable for American horses. On the other side of these tracks — which, by the way, 

 are all railed in — and facing the club-house, is a long row of stands, the centre one of which 

 is reserved for members of the Jockey Club. The whole park, as it is termed, is closed in by 

 hills, on whose sides are growing trees, and their leaves are just now turning to the rich 

 crimson and golden hues of autumn. The first race is about to commence, and everybody, 

 ladies and all, leaves the club-house and walks across the tracks for the Jockey Club Stand. 

 The numbers of the horses about to start are hoisted, but we do not hear anything about 

 6 to 4 on the field, or 4 to I bar one. The air is as undisturbed as during the hush after 

 the start for the Derby. But our mentor is at hand, and directs our wandering curiosity 

 to an elderly gentleman leaning out of the window of an elevated box at one end of the 

 stand ; he is selling pools, and a pool is conducted in this way : Supposing three horses 

 start ; one chance may sell for 200 dollars, another for lOO, aad another for 50. The buyer 

 of the chance that wins takes the whole 350 dollars, less 3 per cent, commission charged by 

 the pool-seller. Posted in the betting, we turn our eyes to the racing. The horses are out, 

 and galloping around the track in clothing. Presently one is pulled up outside our vantage- 

 ground, and we stare as one, two, three heavy woollen cloths are taken off the panting 

 animal. The thermometer is at 80 deg., and the coat of the horse is foaming wet. All are 

 galloped in clothing, and stripped in this way ; and then the race commenced. Away they 

 go, all pulling hard, at a cracking pace and in a cloud of dust. Now they disappear, and 

 where will they reappear .' — will it be down the steps by the club-house } No ; the track has 

 taken a turn we had not noticed, and there they go in full view opposite the stand ; another 

 deep bend, a turn, and they are in the straight for home. We watch curiously for the finish ; 

 shouts are raised that something or other will win ; the ladies stand up, and excitement is 

 culminating. On they come, the two leaders leaving the other three concealed in a thick wall 

 of dust, and everybody is wrong as to what is winning ; a black boy, his two eyes looking 

 like white rosettes on his ebony face, is ' coming ; ' he has got his saddle forward on his horse's 

 withers, and his feet are apparently kicking at the horse's mouth ; but no matter, his horse 

 is a good one, has plenty left in him to finish with, and wins by half a dozen lengths. It was 

 a good race, for all the horses as they straggled in were fairly ridden out. 



