348 THE JOCKEY CLUB 



* noblemen and gentlemen associating and betting ' 

 with ' blackguards/ and, what is more, of members of 

 the Jockey Club acting as agents (perhaps commission 

 agents) for their own jockeys by ' putting on the 

 money ' for them, and of a member of the Jockey 

 Club publicly squabbling with Mr. ' Plunger ' Walton. 

 To betting may be traced nearly all the ' nobbling ' 

 that has ever taken place, nearly all the trouble and 

 misery that have resulted from horse-racing, nearly 

 all the questionable proceedings recorded in the annals 

 of the Turf, nearly all the calumnious reports to which 

 the most honourable owners, trainers, and jockeys 

 have been subjected, and nearly all the lawsuits which 

 have arisen out of horse-racing. Nor is it going too 

 far to say that betting is the great first cause of the 

 ridiculously exorbitant charges, the downright robberies, 

 to which everybody who follows the sport of horse- 

 racing, to however small an extent, is invariably ex- 

 posed, whether travelling by road or rail, or water or 

 air, whether eating or drinking, or resting or sleeping, 

 at the hotel or the hired house, or the ' apartments 

 let furnished,' whether requiring a stable for his horses 

 or a horse or horses from a stable. As Admiral Eous 

 very truly said (' Horse-Racing,' p. 7) : ' The owner 

 of a racehorse in the United Kingdom is like Cain — 

 the hand of every man who profits by the trade is 

 against him.' The argument appears to be this : 

 1 Lightly come, lightly gone ; everybody who follows 

 the sport of horse-racing makes or loses money by 



