NEWMARKET REMINISCENCES 187 



mounting before they should. On disqualification 

 for technical irregularities I hold very strong 

 opinions indeed, as Refereaders are aware. Of 

 course one desires that wrongdoers should suffer 

 for their faults, but too often these mistakes do 

 not hit those intimately concerned so hard as the 

 public, and, bearing that in mind, I am all for 

 hedging round actors in the great game with 

 precautions against their falling into error. That 

 is why I have so long fought for a better system 

 of examining entries, to guard against technical 

 objections, and why also I consider that a 

 competent official to take charge of the winning 

 jockey and personally conduct him to the Clerk of 

 the Scales is a necessity. This was amply proved 

 at Leicester when a boy who won was told by a 

 bystander that he was beaten, and so induced to 

 get off before reaching the right place for the 

 purpose. 



The editor of the Sporting World aston- 

 ished me once by advising the Jockey Club to 

 turn Newmarket's into gate-money meetings. I 

 can't see where the Club can do itself any 

 good by declaring the Heath, which is crossed 

 by several rights-of-way, a close borough alto- 

 gether, and I would be sorry indeed to find 

 them make such a move. In the first place, the 

 crop they would get must be the same as the old 

 lady's when she sheared her pigs — much cry and 

 little wool — for those outside at Newmarket's 

 meetings are not at all likely to pay to go in, 

 seeing that they can't find the money ; and, 

 again, the Club would be cutting away the last 

 remnant of the old, almost feudal idea of racing— 

 that the big were not unwishful to provide sport 

 for the small folk. Oh, Mr Sporting World, 



