421 



APPENDIX TO RACING- 



Omiseion Explained— Drastic Measures required Immediately— Five Years of Bad Times- 

 No Likelihood of Improvement— Expense of Breeding and Baoing Maintained— 

 Stallion Fees— Cost of a Foal— Cost to Produce a Good Horse— Purchasers of Fashion- 

 able Foals— Bad System— Paradoxical— Old Fees— Relationship between Owners 

 and Kaoecourse Executives— An Analogy— Old Times— Times Change i— Principle 

 must be Changed Too — Entrance Fees, Forfeits, and Starting Fees — System in 

 Ireland— A Scale for Entries — Same as Punchestown — Fees for the Derby of 

 1892— Owners' Blindness to their Position— Preposterous System— Recruits from the 

 Middle Classes— What they Did— What they Should Do— A Homily on Past and 

 Present— A Collapse Inevitable— Analysis of Owners— Sad Eesult— What may Even- 

 tuate—What Ought to Exist— Behind the Scenes— General Public- Racecourse 

 Companies- Ignorance of Both— What is Required of the Jockey Club— The Author's 

 Opinion— Trainers— Pos?crij9t— January, 1894— A Disastrous Record— The late Mr. 

 G. A. Baird— The Duchess of Montrose and Others— Another Word to the Jockey 

 Club. 



Owing to having mislaid the MS., and forgetting all about it until 

 it turned up recently, a portion belonging to Racing was not sent by 

 me to the printers in time to come in near top of page 188. I am, 

 therefore, obliged to bring it in as an appendix, but it should be 

 taken by the reader in its proper place, and not in its present position. 

 I wrote nearly all of it at Christmas, 1892. 



As I said, racing may be perpetuated for all time— a long time any- 

 way ; but, if so, measures drastic and effective must be taken, and if 

 they be not taken immediately the collapse of the sport is inevitable. 



The Jockey Club must look to the interest of those who breed horses 

 for the purpose of sale or racing them— they must also look after those 

 forming the rank and file of '* owners." 



The last five years have been the very worst that were ever ex- 

 perienced by any man alive. There is not a community in the kingdom 

 which has not suffered, nor is there probably a single great firm as well 

 off now as it was five or ten years ago ; while the aristocracy, gentry, 

 and farmers, having fared far worse than the trading community, 

 are not half as well off as they were a decade ago. At the present 

 moment things are worse than ever, nor does there seem the least 

 chance of improvement ; on the contrary, there is every likelihood of 

 their getting still worse. 



In face of this terrible state of national affairs the expenses of 

 breeding racehorses and racing them are not alone kept up to what 

 they were in good times, but they are absolutely increasing. 



To get the service of a stallion of even moderate fame a man has to 

 pay for his mare a fee of from £50 to £100, while to get near those of 

 first-class renown he has to pay from £150 to £250. In addition to the 

 service fee, thoroughbred foals in England stand the owner in pretty 

 nearly £100 the day they are dropped : and by the time they go to the 

 starting-post for the first time, as two-year olds, another £150 will 



