RACING AS A SPORT. 9 



patronise the Turf as formerly, but that they neither 

 choose to rob or be robbed ; and one or the other they 

 must be, so long as betting men, and not the owners 

 of horses, are permitted to sway the Racing World. 



It is pretty generally allowed by all persons who 

 know any thing about the matter, that no man under 

 ordinary circumstances can make money by keeping 

 race-horses, if he merely runs to win. If a man of 

 large fortune keeps them, he ought to calculate that 

 they will cost him so much a year according to their 

 number, and put them down to his expenses as he 

 does his other horses, or carriages, or his hounds. If 

 he does not think them worth this expense, he had 

 better not got upon the Turf; for if he means -to retain 

 the character of a gentleman and man of honour, he 

 ought to calculate to lose so much. He may, how- 

 ever, be fortunate in his horses, possess good judg- 

 ment himself, or find a trainer who has, and who will 

 be honest enough to place his horses well for him, and 

 do all in his power to win — he may, therefore, under 

 such circumstances, keep them at very little expense, 

 but an expense he must reckon on their being more or 

 or less ; for make money by them honestly he will 

 not in one case in a hundred. 



Let me, however, endeavour to rescue racing and 

 race-horses from the sweeping charge that is brought 

 against them of being the ruin of thousands. The 

 fact really is, that simply racing and the keeping 

 race-horses will bring no man to ruin unless he is a 

 ready-made fool. If a man of 500/. a year is idiot 

 enough to set up his four-in-hand, of course he must 

 be ruined ; but we are not to say from this that fours- 

 in-hand are the ruin of those who keep them. They 

 will, of course, be the ruin of those who do so with- 



