BUSINESS OF HORSE-RACING. 91 



much book-keeping to be done, so many accounts 

 to check and settle, as to render it necessary that 

 the trainer should keep a clerk or secretary, an 

 office filled in some cases by a member of the 

 trainer's own family, perhaps his wife, or a 

 daughter. It would never answer to allow a 

 stranger to become familiar with the secrets of 

 the prison-house. 



It will be gathered from the foregoing sum- 

 mary, brief as it may be thought, that horse- 

 racing to those engaged in it is somewhat of 

 a serious pastime. "It takes a bit out of a jockey " 

 to ride two or three races per diem, whilst trainers 

 as a meeting progresses have much to do ; 

 owners also, with " thousands " invested in entry 

 moneys and bets, have anxious moments to 

 endure. In short, without devoted, never-ceasing 

 attention to the business incidental to the turf, 

 horse-racing as a pastime for the people would 

 speedily come to an end. 



IV. 



The foregoing observations on the "business" 

 of horse-racing may be fitly supplemented by a 

 few additional remarks about the officers of the 

 turf — chiefly with regard to former doings by 

 these gentlemen, whose positions to-day are less 

 " picturesque " than they were half a century ago. 



Various meetings are becoming nowadays 

 hard to sustain, and there is, in some instances, 

 it is generally believed, a good deal of begging 

 on the part of the clerk of the course to get 

 the requisite funds ; in such cases that gentleman 

 performs, or used to perform, a liberal share of 



