94 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



propriety of his deportment on all occasions, 

 perhaps lauded for his praiseworthy zeal and 

 assiduity, he becomes also the best means of 

 communication with all the owners of horses, 

 and is thus fully enabled to carry out the views 

 of the race-meeting of his own locality, city, or 

 burgh, the most judicious appropriation of the 

 grants of the municipal body, or the subscriptions 

 of the inhabitants, and ensure the success and 

 popularity which in racing matters are the life- 

 blood of the meeting." 



V. 



Many curious anecdotes have, from time to 

 time, been circulated about the doings of various 

 officers of the turf, not a few of them, perhaps, 

 of a rather imaginative kind. In one or two 

 instances where the clerk of the course acted 

 also as handicapper, as well as being lessee of 

 the grand stand, it is said that it was his custom 

 to " retain " all the big stakes ; in plain language, 

 it has been more than once implied that some 

 handicappers were allowed, by certain owners, 

 to keep the stake-money, on condition of the 

 horses entered by them being favoured in the 

 apportioning of the weights. "If my horse 

 wins," would say an owner, " the bets I make 

 will pay me ; therefore I shall not trouble myself 

 about the stakes." Such stories must be taken 

 with the usual grain of salt. A story, however, 

 was recently circulated by a well-known turf 

 writer about a small owner, who, having won 

 an important handicap, called on the clerk of the 

 course to lift the stakes ; he was received with a 

 most incredulous stare, but after a brief pause, the 



