AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 491 



until Catterick. That same year I was appointed judge 

 at Newcastle and several other places." 



" There's been a great deal in the papers of late 

 about handicapping ? " 



" I have done a deal of handicapping in my time. 

 Many a time I've had to sit up till twelve o'clock at 

 night and be up at five o'clock the next morning to get 

 through the work. Talking about York, I was officially 

 connected with York for thirty years. Even now I'm 

 a member of the Race Committee, but I cannot go in 

 for that sort of thing now at my time of life. At York 

 I used to be a handicapper, clerk of the course, and 

 judge as well. No doubt it is right that a man ought 

 to have nothing else to do but to handicap ; he should 

 not have any other office to distract him. Great changes 

 have come over racing in my time. A 50 stake was a 

 wonderful thing in my younger days about sixty years 

 ago. We used to have two meetings at York, for which 

 the added money was 3000. Now we give over 8000. 

 Racing is now getting to a nice pitch. It is surprising 

 the quantity of racing there is now to what there used 

 to be. I don't think there are so many good men racing 

 in the present day as there were in the old times. Nor 

 do I think horses stay so well. Owners are more for 

 short courses now than formerly. Why, I have seen 

 four-mile heats, three heats for a race, at York. 



" I commenced at Doncaster the year that Voltigeur 

 and Russborough ran a dead heat. They ran the dead 

 heat off the same afternoon, and the people broke on 

 to the course, overpowering the police. Lord Zetland 

 came to me and said, ' The race cannot be run with the 

 people swarming all over the course.' I said, ' My lord, 

 I cannot help it ; I cannot get them away, and the police 

 are powerless.' Nearly all the way down the straight 



