BUSINESS OF HORSE-RACING. loi 



to suppose that, in both cases, the decision was 

 correct. Many other instances might be adduced, 

 but as they merely form a catalogue of unmeaning 

 repetition, I shall not state them. However, a 

 judge, in order to be master of his business, 

 or qualified for the important office which he 

 undertakes, should be generally acquainted with 

 the jockeys, the colours, and also the horses ; 

 he should observe the running of the horses, 

 particularly when they come within distance, or 

 he will find it a difficult matter, should the race 

 be finely contested, to give a correct decision — a 

 decision satisfactory to his own mind. A judge 

 should abstain from betting, if he wish to avoid 

 suspicion." 



The judge occupies, as he ought to do, the best 

 position for witnessing the finish of a race, and 

 of all the hundreds standing near him not one 

 can view the finale from the same standpoint ; 

 they are all more or less " angled," and see with 

 a squint, hence the varied opinions which prevail 

 after a close finish. Another point in judging, 

 not generally known, is, that every race terminates 

 ■at the winning-post, and that it is not the horse 

 which is first past the post which gains the 

 victory, but the animal which is first at it. This 

 great fact in racing arrangements has led thou- 

 sands into error, and Into asserting that a 

 horse had won when in reality it had not. The 

 judge of an important race, therefore, must be 

 a man of nerve, with a clear head and a cool 

 brain, ready to take in the whole position in 

 half a second — a consummation which is not easy 

 when there is a very close finish with a field of 

 perhaps, say, thirty horses, the first three or four 



