88 FLAT-RACING EXPLAINED. 



it is to be doubted if any amongst these good peo- 

 ple, even the clerks of courses included, could give 

 a correct definition practically of any one of them, 

 of vv^hat it consisted. 



In the absence of precise information, it is highly 

 difficult to understand the ins and outs and the gen- 

 eral peculiarities of a race-course, and yet it is so 

 important a matter that nobody who goes racing 

 should \w in ignorance of it. To find it out for your- 

 self is an event l>oth troublesome and not a little 

 perplexing. You may walk over the ground, you 

 may view it from a spot here and a spot there, you 

 may look at it from the stand and the stand enclos- 

 ure, you may ask whom you will for information, 

 but it all ends at this: the actual levels, the forma- 

 tion of the ground itself, the lengths of the gradients, 

 are so much Greek to you, that so far as getting ad- 

 vised upon these necessary details, you must needs 

 give it up, and retire very little wiser than when you 

 came. 



If this were an isolated case some provision might 

 be made for it, but it happens to be the state of 

 things a person must be prepared to encounter, let 

 him select any race-meeting he may choose to visit 

 anywhere in the kingdom. For some reason or other 

 a survey giving details of courses appears never to 

 be made, or if this should be made, it certainly is 



I 



