RACING SHOULD BE RESTRICTED TO FOUR DAYS. 279 



plan be thought inadvisable, then an extra day, or two days 

 if needed, might be given in the following week — the latter, 

 a provision that his lordship made, which it may be remarked, 

 was the cause of the re-introduction of the Second Spring 

 Meeting at Newmarket, after its discontinuance for so many 

 years. Even at head-quarters, four days a week should 

 satisfy the most ardent sportsman. If the time did not 

 permit all the races to be run off, it would be better to have 

 eight annual meetings instead of seven, concluding the racing 

 season at head-quarters as now with the Houghton meeting. 



Apart from the increased comfort to racing men, there is an 

 incentive for the change in the benefit accruing to those pro- 

 fessionally engaged in training. Five days racing means an 

 augmentation of the Sunday labour which, in almost every 

 other direction, it is endeavoured to limit as much as possible. 

 Racehorses must travel to and from the scene of action, and 

 men must take them. Workmen must be employed in the 

 construction of booths and temporary stands, and horses and 

 men in the transport of the material. Sunday must be largely 

 devoted, too, to the cooking of provisions, and the conveyance 

 of drinkables from place to place. The present custom was 

 commenced, and is continued, for the benefit of the few; it 

 finds no sympathy with the bulk of the people, or with the 

 generahty of racing men.^ 



I should add that certain recent enactments of the Jockey 

 Club have, with excellent judgment, in a certain measure 

 helped in the diminution of Sunday labour. I refer to rule 

 54. By it, all entries previously made on a Sunday, are in the 

 future to be made on the Monday, or for races falling on 

 Monday on the Saturday previously. 



1 Since this was written Saturday racing has been (in April 1879) abolished at 

 Newmarket. 



