THE FEENCH JOCKEY CLUB 47 



every case with the foreigner and witli foreign horses, 

 and would have ruined at the outset the very cause 

 the Club was instituted to promote. Besides, the Club 

 required funds to found prizes ; and the only way to 

 get those funds was to have ' gate meetings,' at which 

 few Frenchmen would be likely to pay their francs 

 simply to see their native horses beaten, and at which 

 few French owners were hkely to subscribe heavy sums 

 of money to be carried across ' the silver streak,' so that 

 it would liave been hopeless to look for any considerable 

 ' race fund ' from an accumulation of ' entries ' and 

 ' forfeits.' Moreover the Club was in direct conflict 

 with the State as represented by the Administration 

 des Haras (ready enough to offer small ' prix ' at races 

 on the ' demi-sang ' or ' pure Aralj ' and anti-English 

 plan), so that no subvention of any importance was to 

 be hoped for from that quarter ; not to mention that 

 the Administration would have been more determined 

 than the Club itself to limit the competition to horses 

 ' bred in France.' Yet it was quite clear that ' prix ' or 

 ' added money ' would be required to coax French 

 owners to pay even a moderate ' entry ' before they 

 would incur the expenses of training and racing, and 

 that ' gate meetings,' at which French self-respect or 

 even vanity must not receive any violent shock, were 

 tlie best means of providing resources for ' prix.' 

 Whether a ' gate ' were charged at the very commence- 

 ment or not matters little ; it soon became the universal 

 — or all but universal — practice, and in course of time 

 the funds of the French Jockey Club were so large that 

 the ' prix ' or ' added money ' for the Prix du Jockey 

 Club, or French Derby, fixed originally at 5,000 francs 

 (200/.), had risen in a few years to 20,000 francs (800/.), 

 and in 1878 had reached the handsome amount of 



