3i HORSE-EACING IN FRANCE 



les nombreiix ouvriers dont il etait le pere et le soiitien.' 

 He was materially assisted by an Englishman named 

 Palmer (well known in English ' horsey ' circles of his 

 day), who Avas at one time his head man, who is re- 

 ported to have made a good thing in francs by exhibit- 

 ing at so much a head the celebrated stud horse 

 Rainbow on Sundays to the Parisians and others (who 

 ' gaped upon him as on a thing miraculous '), and who 

 seems to have been identical with the founder of 

 ' Palmer's New Betting Rooms,' one of the earliest pre- 

 cursors of the ' Salon des Courses,' at Paris. And so 

 within two years of its certified existence the French 

 Turf lost one of its earliest and most enthusiastic 

 ' fathers.' 



Very different was the case with M. Charles Laffitte, 

 the first treasurer of the French Jockey Club and one 

 of the original ' foundation members.' He lived to 

 1875 or 1876, and had been known, when he died, as a 

 sportsman of some fifty years' standing, having esta- 

 blished that character before the date of the Societe 

 d'Encouragement. As early as 1829 he is found racing, 

 sometimes on the principle of ' every man his own 

 jockey,' and in 1831 he appeared as plaintiff in an 

 action against Madame veuve Cremieux (widow of the 

 celebrated breeder and dealer and sister of M. Cheri- 

 Salvador, the first French ' Tattersall ') about a filly 

 misrepresented as being ' by Merlin ' instead of ' by 

 Morisco,' and recovered damages. He is described in 

 the ' case ' as ' M. Charles Lafiitte, of 36 Eue Laffitte, 

 Paris ; ' he is understood to have been a nephew of the 

 celebrated Jacques Laffitte, father of the Princess de la 

 Moscowa, and was himself a banker, in which capacity 

 he was well adapted for his post of treasurer to the 

 Jockey Club and for the useful part he is said to have 



