MODERN BETTING ILLUSTRATED, ETC. 195 



To affirm that a sum of from four to five 

 million pounds is annually risked in bets on 

 horse-races looks like wishing to play on the 

 credulity of the public, but good reasons exist 

 for believing that the amount named is about 

 right, and under rather than over the real total, 

 could it be ascertained. It is still possible to 

 back a horse running in a big handicap to win 

 from twenty to fifty thousand pounds. Roseberry, 

 the property of Mr. James Smith, won both the 

 Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire in the same 

 year ; Mr. Smith taking, it was stated at the 

 time, a sum of over a hundred thousand pounds 

 out of the ring by the victory of his horse. The 

 event was remarkable as being the first occasion 

 on which these two races were won by the same 

 animal. The public benefited largely by the 

 victory of Roseberry ; it would be no exaggera- 

 tion perhaps to say that two hundred thousand 

 pounds would fall to be paid in all, but the 

 bookmakers had of course the sums betted 

 against all the other horses that ran to pay 

 with. There were twenty-nine running in that 

 year's Cesarewitch, all of which were backed at 

 some price or other, the favourite, Woodlands, 

 which started at the odds of \k to i against 

 its chance, being heavily supported. 



There are writers on turf matters who main- 

 tain that there is not now so much betting as 

 there used to be, but that contention can only 

 apply to particular races ; for, as a matter of fact, 

 there is in reality five times the amount of turf 

 speculation to-day that there was forty or fifty 

 years since. Take Scotland as an example ; half 

 a century ago there was no person earning a 



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