IVIIO SETS THE MARKET? 193 



quietly reserved for a particular event has been 

 awarded a weight that will make iuS victory as 

 nearly as may be a foregone conclusion, a coup will be 

 planned. In a case of this kind, the better to improve 

 the occasion, two or three of the leading bookmakers 

 are often taken into the confidence of owner and 

 trainer. The market, if possible, will be set in such 

 fashion as to make a particular horse favourite in 

 order that a good price may the more readily be ob- 

 tained against the ' planted ' animal. Those not in 

 ' the know ' become the sufferers, and wonder how it 

 occurs that the nag, about which they hastened to 

 take 5 to 4, could possibly be beaten by a horse that 

 started at 8 to 1, and, to ail appearance, had not been 

 backed by anybody. The bookmakers in the secret 

 would, as the saying goes, field heavily against the 

 other horses in the r^ice, and so be able to accommo- 

 date the owner of the winner with a crood big" sum at 

 a fair price. Such is one way of 'sophisticating 

 the odds,' and fleecing the outside racing public. 

 No backer of horses, however astute or experi- 

 enced he may be, can contend against such practices 

 ■ — practices which are reputed to be of frequent occur- 

 rence. 



So far, the rate of odds incidental to every-day races 

 have only been treated of. As L>gards the two 

 greatest handicaps of the season, and other important 

 events of the same kind, the odds offered for the 

 acceptance of backers are still more fanciful and un- 

 just than in the case of the smaller races. Long 

 before the ' entries ' are due for the Cesarewitch and 

 Cambridgeshire, and therefore long before it can be 



13 



