HERMITS REPORTED ACCIDENT, 185 



days before Bath races (the week fatal to many a Derby 

 favourite), the canards so industriously circulated as to the 

 real cause of the deadly opposition he had met with, were to 

 the effect : that he had broken down, had broken a blood-vessel 

 in his head, and I know not what ; but that, to a certainty, he 

 was Jiors de combat, and on the eventful Derby day would be 

 an absentee, as his forlorn price of 100 to one clearly fore- 

 shadowed. The astute believers in this state of things wanted 

 to know what was the good of keeping the horse puppet-like 

 dangling before the eyes of an enlightened public after the 

 last guinea had been got, and there was no chance of resus- 

 citating him, and added that now, if only for appearance sake, 

 he should be struck out. But Mr. Chaplin (the owner), that 

 straightforward gentleman and fearless sportsman, ever as 

 anxious to please and serve his friends as himself, thought 

 and did otherwise, and decided to run the horse that all might 

 see how false the rumours were. He ran and won. 



Instances like these could be multiplied ad infinitiivi. But 

 they are enough. They show clearly the incisiveness of the 

 gallant Admiral's remark already quoted : " Losers would 

 always much sooner make out the rest of the world to be 

 rogues than themselves fools." Racing men areas anxious to 

 run their honses as ever the public are to see them run; and for 

 the best of all possible reasons, namely — it does not pay to 

 keep entering them without doing so. The cause of so many 

 absentees is, not dislike on the part of the owners to bring 

 their horses out, but the action of the public who prevent the 

 owner obtaining a reasonable price ; for he, under such circum- 

 stances, prefers scratching to running his horse to his own 

 injury. The public complain, but the remedy is in their 

 hands and in their hands only. Let them follow and not take 

 precedence of owners, and we should then see larger fields at 



