1 8 THE RACING WORLD 



most solid grounds on which to make up their 

 minds ; and yet they are ready to listen to, and to 

 be greatly influenced by, the almost certainly ill- 

 based opinion of any hanger-on who supposes that 

 he has made a discovery. 



I rather think I have told this story elsewhere, 

 but it is so illustrative of the sort of thing which 

 frequently happens that I must take my chance of 

 its being new to the reader. A few years ago a 

 relation of mine, with whom I lived a good deal, 

 had a very moderate horse running at Newmarket. 

 According to the estimate of it formed by trainer 

 and owner and everyone connected with the stable, 

 it had no sort of chance. There were only four 

 runners ; two of them were very likely to beat it, 

 the third seemed certain to do so, and long odds 

 were laid on this one. I had a few sovereigns on 

 the stable representative, on the very •"' off chance," 

 not quite liking the way the favourite walked — it 

 struck me as being rather lame ; and there must 

 have been something the matter with him, for he 

 was badly beaten, and to the great astonishment 

 of those who knew most about the matter our 

 horse won. A racecourse acquaintance, who had 

 no idea that I was at all behind the scenes, 

 turned to me triumphantly and asked me if I 

 had backed it ? I replied that I had done so for 



