I 



ASSUMED NAMES, ETC. 333 



require the services of trainers and jockeys have 

 the remedy in their own hands — they should make 

 it a rule not to train in a stable in which the 

 trainer keeps race-horses of his own, nor should 

 they employ upon any occasion a jockey to ride 

 who is an owner of race-horses There would be 

 no hardship in such prohibition. Jockeys and 

 trainers rich enough to keep race-horses ought to 

 retire from business. 



Another nuisance of the turf which is attract- 

 ing much attention at the present time, and which 

 imperatively demands investigation and reform, is 

 the heavy transactions reputed to be made on behalf 

 of jockeys in the betting rings. " Will Integrity 

 win, think you ? " asks one turfite of another. 

 " Well, on public form he ought to do so ; but his 

 jockey, I know, has backed Malpractice," and 

 so a doubt is raised as to the honesty of the rider 

 of Integrity. Men, too, are now pointed out in 

 the ring as " So and So Bunkum's " (the jockey's) 

 " commissioner," or as Grabmore, who executes 

 the behests of Tom Strappem, the trainer, and it 

 is a fact that many jockeys have heavy " set- 

 tlings " at the clubs every Monday in the course 

 of the racing season. 



Apropos. Some three years ago a gentle- 

 man who had a colt running at a fashionable 

 racing centre in an important race, for whom 

 he had engaged one of the best jockeys of 

 the day, meeting an intimate friend in the 

 paddock, asked him if he had backed The 

 Chanter, his horse. 



" No," was the reply, " not yet. I am hanging 

 on here till I know what Billy Mitchell does. 

 What Billy Mitchell does I shall do." 



