Trainers, Touts, and Tipsters 



The remark has been made by a professional 

 cynic that nobody need be afraid of the tipster, 

 unless he is a tipster himself; and, passing by 

 such flippant suggestions, I may mention that, 

 when I was training at Priam Lodge, Epsom, 

 some of those artists afforded me a great deal of 

 wholesome amusement. One of them wrote to 

 me saying that he was about to be married with- 

 out means — we do not all wait for the sinews of 

 war before we dash into battle — and that if I 

 would send him the name of my next likely 

 winner, he would christen his first baby after me. 

 After me, too, as if he made a certainty of having 

 two or three babies soon ! It seemed like flying 

 in the face of Providence to express such con- 

 fidence before the weights were issued. 



Another member of the same fraternity, who 

 had been having a bad time, implored me, with 

 tears in his voice, to tell him a winner, or his 

 next Sunday observance would be his last. " I 

 intend," he declared, "to scandalise my neigh- 

 bours, fair and otherwise, by slaughtering myself 

 brutally near the chancel." He may have done 

 so quite near the chancel, for I have never seen 

 him since. 



In fact, trainers and jockeys receive a variety 

 of curious letters which tickle their fancy to the 



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