292 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



trainers who are far above such practices, but 

 that men are doing such deeds every day is 

 certain. 



VI. 



Another phase of the chicanery of the turf 

 may be now alluded to, arising from the mer- 

 cenary spirit of certain greedy owners — it is the 

 practice of an owner to take a big bet about 

 one of his horses, and leave his "lot" in the 

 hands of a bookmaker to " work " in the market 

 as he pleases. The right of a man to wallop 

 his own nigger has been asserted ; in the same 

 spirit there are m.en who, having accepted in 

 a handicap or other race with four or five horses, 

 claim to do with them as they please, and what 

 this style of doing business leads to can be 

 gathered from the preceding pages. The mode 

 alluded to is a contemptible phase of turf action. 

 In plain language, the owner so acting simply 

 lends himself to a fraud, because the bookmaker, 

 knowing that only the horse which he has laid 

 against is intended to win, takes his measures 

 accordingly, and manages so to bring the 

 others before the public that they will all in 

 turn be well backed by unthinking backers — 

 the horse which is intended to win the race 

 being kept, when possible, carefully in the back- 

 ground, stories about its condition being pub- 

 lished which prevent its being noticed. The 

 intended horse may of course be beaten, but 

 the cunning of the transaction is in no way 

 lessened by that fact. It remains that the owner, 

 in conjunction with the bookmaker, tried to do 

 "a bit of thieving," for which, in other circles, 



