266 BETTING AS IT MIGHT BE. 



and in the case of the winner as much as i66 to i was taken 

 and offered. Wliere is any such h'st of quotations to be seen in 

 which half the number of the horses entered in any large handi- 

 cap are backed at one time .-* Here are sixty-four dogs, against 

 sixty of which liberal odds are offered ; the bookmakers only 

 refusing to lay against four out of the wliole (this I take 

 to be the meaning of the term " no betting," placed against 

 certain names) whilst in most of the other instances the offers 

 are very liberal, and many of the animals heavily backed. 

 I have ventured to give the list /;/ extenso to confirm my 

 theory that as much speculation as, if not more than,' now 

 exists might be expected if the system were adopted in 

 racing. 



The extraordinarily long odds laid against so many nomi- 

 nations for months before "the draw," must be a boon to all 

 owners ; the prices laid subsequently cannot be otherwise 

 than agreeable to the public ; and in both cases the result 

 must be satisfactory to the bookmakers, or they would not 

 be so unusually liberal in their offers. Owners of racehorses 

 do not, as a body, object to other people backing their horses. 

 What they do dislike and resent, is being forestalled in the 

 market, which is, and always has been, a never-failing source 

 of unpleasantness and worse. 



Though a lover of the " leash," I am but a novice at the 

 sport, scarcely initiated in what appears to me a difficult 

 science ; but from information derived through the medium 

 of the press, all the betting is on the nomination up to and 

 before the "draw:" this being the case with the Waterloo 

 Cup also, so far as I can sec, with but one exception. This 

 one exception was Coomassie, the winner in the previous year, 

 and one is almost tempted to add " of course she was an 

 absentee." I know nothing of those concerned with the 



