BETTING. 299 



Three words to a bookmaker, and the Monday 

 following brings a cheque for just the sum you 

 have desired to win — if only the words be 

 properly chosen. " Four to one Fair Promise ! " 

 yells the bookmaker. '' I'll have four hundred to 

 one," remarks the backer, who fancies the colt 

 by Hope, from Deception ; and if the creature 

 can just get his head in front at the critical 

 moment, the mere utterance of the simple 

 phrase is worth .£400. 



Only, as a very general rule. Fair Promise, 

 after making a bold show at the distance, dies 

 away to nothing, and finishes a bad thii'd ; in 

 which case the simplicity of the operation, which 

 had seemed so delightful at the time, becomes a 

 fatal element. If a man can win money nowa- 

 days from the ring, there is very little doubt 

 about his being paid. Backers make few bad 

 debts if they can only find a winner, but Jlog 

 opus, hie labor est. 



So-called ''good things" are the ruin of 

 speculators. Nowhere else is it more true than 

 on the Turf that a little knowledge is a dangerous 

 thing. The horse that is ''good enough to win 

 five Derbies out of six " is a cruel source of 

 downfall when, as usually happens, it is on the 

 sixth occasion that the backer plunges. A man 

 is perhaps in the secrets of the stable. He 



