300 BACECOURSE AND COVERT SIDE. 



knows that a certain horse has been tried ; he 

 even knows at what weight he met the others 

 wdth which he was galloped, and how far he 

 heat them. He is comforted, his money being 

 " on," when the news leaks out in the papers, 

 and the prophets extol the performance. 



What he does not know is that another 

 favourite has been tried ten pounds better, and 

 that an outsider, of whose existence not half a 

 dozen people had been aware, is far in advance 

 of either. He gloats over the facts and the 

 criticisms, he turns up previous running in his 

 book, ingeniously explains away the bad per- 

 formance, and exaggerates the good till the race 

 is over, and he is put out of his misery. The 

 " book," indeed, the " Turf Guide," is a constant 

 source of disaster, for horses are not machines, 

 that can be implicitly trusted to do a second, 

 third, fourth, and seventeenth time what they 

 have done before. The horse's health, the 

 jockey's ability, the luck of the race — avoidance 

 of getting badly off in a short race, having 

 nothing to make running in a long one, the 

 being shut in, or interfered with at critical 

 moments, the nature of the course, the state of 

 the ground — all tell on the result. So many 

 totally unexpected accidents occur. 



I call to mind one example of as great a 



