RAMBLES ABOUT NEWMARKET 217 



than one taken at Newmarket on the Race 

 side. No two opinions can be as to which 

 makes the best going, allowing for difference ia 

 thickness and arrangement of soil and subsoil, 

 and I wonder whether, where herbage has to 

 fight for existence, safety to horses going on it 

 does not lie in numbers of different material 

 brought in- for use. The July courses beat the 

 Rowley Mile all to nothing for thickness of 

 felting, elasticity, and deadening hoof-strokes' 

 force. The former are carpeted with a very 

 extensive omnium gatherum, grass forms nearly 

 the whole of the other. 



The Dullingham road was formerly beloved 

 of jockeys wasting. Do they ever work hard 

 nowadays as they used ? They may. I never 

 seem to come across them, and I have the 

 evidence of a very old inhabitant of these (Dull- 

 ingham road) parts that he does not come across 

 them. This is the aged gatekeeper of the Great 

 Eastern Railway Company's level crossing, where 

 I recollect him for years and years ; and a handy 

 chap he was, too, in summer, because his cottage 

 hard by has a well of most beautiful, always ice- 

 cold water. In the days when jockeys were 

 plentiful on this highway the gateman timed 

 himself so as to be ready on their return with a 

 jugful freshly drawn for purposes of a splash on 

 the head, or a gargle, most welcome and refresh- 

 ing, helpful to keep the pores at work, and freshen 

 the body up without interfering with the weight. 

 Jockeys would tell you that they preferred this 

 walk to others radiating from headquarters, 

 because it is sometimes so shut in by high 

 hedges, the sort which were conventional but 

 went out with picturesque farming. A great 



