64 THE ENGLISH TURF 



sees a whole company of stars. The cast is made up with 

 a big star for the best parts, a slightly lesser star in the 

 second-best part, and minor stars are amidst the rank and 

 file of performers. Not a name is on the programme that 

 is not known, and known well. Very often, however, when 

 the star goes on tour he does not take other stars with him, 

 but chooses a company of second or third-rate artistes, who 

 tend to show the excellence of his performance in an even 

 brighter light than would be the case were he a star playing 

 amongst lesser stars in town. So, at many race meetings 

 there is one big event on the card, and a lot of minor items 

 to complete the bill of fare. We have seen a ten-thousand- 

 pound prize given a setting of selling plates and one-hundred- 

 pound handicaps, but at Ascot we have a star performance 

 all round, and the least valuable of the twenty-eight prizes 

 is seldom won by a bad horse. Not that it is in every case 

 the value of the prize which attracts a good horse to Ascot. 

 It is true certainly that some of the prizes offered during 

 the week are of great value, but no such amount as ten 

 thousand pounds has ever been heard of on the Royal 

 Heath, something under four thousand pounds being the 

 greatest amount of money which can be won in one race. 



But because Ascot is a bigger and better meeting than 

 any other in the Calendar, no blame attaches to those 

 meetings which cannot approach it. No executive can offer 

 big prizes without a big revenue behind it, and at many 

 meetings, especially those a long way from London, a large 

 revenue is an impossibility. Though a really valuable stake 

 will always attract good horses, a meeting with but one such 

 stake and the rest third-rate plating does not take such high 

 rank as one where there is uniform good value and no 

 monster prize. 



If there were several meetings of the Ascot stamp the 

 supply of good horses would soon be exhausted, and the 

 good prizes would become the prey of third-rate nags, 

 because there would be nothing better to run for them. 

 The platers, too, must have their chance, and if Ascot does 

 not cater for them, every other meeting in the year does, 

 though some do so only in a minor degree. About nineteen 



