preface 



HAVE often been asked the ques- 

 tion, " Why don't you write a book 

 of your turf experiences ?" This 

 inquiry, often repeated, and the con- 

 troversy which there has been of 

 late over reminiscences of turf history of forty or 

 fifty years ago, have emboldened me to try to amuse 

 my patrons and friends with an account of a few 

 incidents and stories of a more modern date, which 

 have come within my own experience of the turf, an 

 experience which extends over the past thirty-six 

 years, and must be the justification of my attempt. 



I must ask my readers not to consider my book 

 from a literary point of view, I have merely en- 

 deavoured to describe in my own language, and so 

 far as my memory serves me, incidents as they 

 occurred, and stories as I heard them told, in the 



