6 BETTING AS A BUSINESS. 



great inconvenience be got to Doncaster to run for 

 a Royal Plate there ; but now the railroads have 

 remedied that inconvenience, there would be sure to 

 be good Fields for Plates worth a thousand, or even 

 five hundred, each. The towns from which they 

 might be taken would lose little by it ; for where we 

 see a " walk over," or a Field of three horses, it 

 plainly shows that at the present moment Queen's 

 Plates create but little attraction. 



Returning to those laws that betting men will 

 always uphold (so long as they can) the first of 

 which is that their interest is to be the fiat under 

 which every owner of a race-horse must act I really 

 cannot see why such persons or their interest should 

 be consulted at all. What good do they do the Turf ? 

 Certainly very little; while their influence, on the 

 contrary, does it a great deal of harm. Doubtless 

 there are some men who keep several horses in 

 training, and bet heavily at the same time ; but these 

 are comparatively very few indeed in number. 

 Where on^ hundred is betted by those who keep 

 race-horses, forty hundreds are betted by those who 

 do not. Hundreds of those who bet largely know 

 little or nothing about a race-horse, neither know a 

 racing-looking horse whether he is a good goer, or, 

 if going to run, whether he looks in good form for it 

 or not. The fact is, such men merely as a business 

 make up a book, look to the different horses' public 

 running, and lay or take the odds accordingly. This, 

 and this only, is their business. If they attend a 

 race, it is merely to see whether at the last moment 

 they cannot get some point in their favour as to the 

 odds. If at the same meeting a race is run for on 

 which they have no bet, probably they do not take 

 the trouble of looking at it : and, if they do, it is 



