PREFACE 



In these days, when books issue from the press 

 in such profusion, something more than a mere 

 excuse is required from anyone who ventures to 

 add to the number. The justification I beg leave 

 to put forward for pubHshing The Racing World and 

 its Inhabitants is that, so far as I am aware, no 

 similar book has ever been produced. 



Various persons connected with the Turf in 

 different ways have, indeed, figured as authors. 

 Holcroft the dramatist, who, as a lad, was employed 

 in a training stable, wrote about his early life ; 

 Samuel Chifney, the famous jockey, had compiled 

 a small treatise on his profession four years prior to 

 the publication in 1804 of his better-known 

 Genius Genuine ; and nearly a century later 

 another member of the same calling, H. Custance, 

 who thrice rode the winner of the Derby, followed 

 suit. Trainers have exercised their pens, notably 

 John Kent, a devoted servant of Lord George 



b 



