ABOUT THE JOCKEY CLUB. 371 



any person to watch a trial, or to have obtained 

 surreptitiously information respecting a trial from 

 any person or persons engaged in it, or in the 

 service of the owner as trainer of the horses tried, 

 or respecting any horse in training from any 

 person in such services ; or (v.) If any person be 

 guilty of any other corrupt or fraudulent practices 

 on the turf in this or any other country ; every 

 person so offending shall be warned off Newmarket 

 Heath and other places where these rules are in 

 force." 



These laws were evidently devised in favour 

 of betting owners, who cared little about racing 

 except for the opportunities afforded for gambling. 

 During these latter years the Jockey Club has 

 been criticised by several sporting writers with 

 unsparing severity ; various faults incident to 

 a pastime which within the last sixty or seventy 

 years has developed into an immense institution 

 of the gambling order having been improperly 

 laid at its door. The Club, or at all events the 

 men who direct its work, are not seldom held 

 up to the public as "anserous noodles" of the 

 deepest dye, as " men, indeed, who could not 

 be entrusted to groom a horse, far less to make 

 laws for the regulation of horse-racing." Nothing 

 comes easier to some writers when, unfortunately 

 for the public, they are entrusted with the use 

 of pen and ink, than abuse ; but happily abuse 

 is not argument, and no writer desirous of seeing 

 the turf in a flourishing condition, or who is 

 anxious to have its unsavoury surroundings 

 eliminated, can ignore the useful work done 

 by the Club within the last ten or twelve years, 

 which may be assumed as the precursor of more 



