339 



Let not the reader imagine that it is from the standpoint of lofty 

 principles I write against backing horses ; for if 1 thought I could 

 win I would do it myself. But I know I cannot, therefore T do 

 not, and during the many years I have been going to races I never 

 backed twenty horses in them all. I only made one bet at Punchey- 

 town during the thirty-two years I have ben going to it, and then 

 I won £7 on Pa'^sion Flower with Mick Widger up. When I was 

 a youngster I often made a book in a Fmall way among friends ; 

 and though I had few backers and could seldom get "round," 1 

 always found myself a winner at the end of the year. This perhaps 

 first showed me the folly of backing horses, and the experience of 

 years since has confirmed me in the opinion that it is folly. 



As I said elsewhere, one of the greatest trainers in England, knowing 

 as he did the uncertainty of racing, allowed a great portion of his horses 

 to run unbacked by him, and that in the face of the fact that he seldom 

 ran a horse that had not a reasonable chance of winning. 



Now, when a man in the position of him to whom I have alluded, 

 possessing as he did good knowledge of the horses which were engaged 

 against his in a race, and knowing all about the capabilities of his 

 own, considered it to be a losing game to back horses, how in tbe 

 name of wonder can the general public imagine that they can m^ke 

 money by the process? Still, we hear bank and insurance clerks, 

 draper's assistants, grocer's counter-hands, aye, even the very newsbovs 

 in the streets, giving their opinions of horses and backing their fancies. 

 Their fancies ! At the same time I mu^t confess that I have had great 

 fun listening to some of these fellows talking to each other on a race- 

 course and elsewhere. One chap having landed three or four sovereigns, 

 after dropping twenty on the day, jubilantly assures his hearers that his 

 selecti m "simply romped home," the fact being that he had won by a 

 short head, and entirely owing to jockeyship. 



Wifh nothing else to do I have also listened to these simpletons 

 critici-ing this jockey for making the running, and another for lying 

 too tar away, they being as (jualitied to give an opinion on what they 

 were talking about as they were of giving a practical lesson to the 

 jockeys. It is pitiable that these men should be so egnti'^tical, although 

 hugely amusing to hear them display their ignorance with such 

 confident effrontery. 



In the lailway carriages en route to the meeting are these fellows 

 marking their cards with the " winners " (?) given by the daily papers, 

 every one of which these boobies back, and often two or three in the 

 one race. Arrived within the enclosure nothing is heard among them 

 except the question, " What's to win ? " To look a horse over much less 

 walk the course never enters their heads, nor would they look at the 

 race if doing iro would in the least degree interfere with their betting 

 operations. This is very, very sad. 



We hear funny opinions given upon racing by others besides the 

 shop-boy lot. A man who considers himself a good judge of racirg 



