118 FLAT-RACINO EXPLAINED. 



certain public interests involved, no animal should 

 be eligible to run, nor should the entry of any ani- 

 mal be permitted to be officially accepted, not hav- 

 ing a name, in accordance witli the rules of racing. 

 If this salutary obligation were insisted upon, and 

 the rule extended to provide for it, it would do 

 much to further the interests of racing. 



We have certainly moved on since the time when 

 the late Lord Glasgow, with all i)is comicalities and 

 whimsicalities in tlie matter of naming — or, rather, 

 not naming — his horses, was amongst us, justly 

 honored as one of the pillars of the turf. Although 

 only a youngster in those days, I well rememl>er 

 what a crop there was of '.Melbouiiies'' and '"Birds 

 on the Wing," and how he had sires and dams and 

 grauddams and grent granddams of sires and dams, 

 all pedigreed, to define as far as it was possible 

 generations upon generations of unnamed horses 

 in most delightful confusion. 



Behind a dash of bluntness, and it may have been 

 perhaps of austerity, in his ordinary demeanor, there 

 was little doubt there lurked in Lord Glasgow's com- 

 position a rare fund of racy humor. By not naming 

 his horses, and thus in a way bringing the "jargon 

 of the ring," as he amusingly called it, into positive 

 collapse, there is little doubt he intended a huge 

 joke. For once, however, he named a ( olt (then no 

 beauty to look at) after his friend and boon compau- 



