IVHO SETS THE MARKET? 199 



the backer than in the case of handicaps in which 

 ever}' horse has, as the case may be put, a ditferent, 

 impost on its back, and in which the correct form of 

 nearly every horse li]\:ely to compete is known, or 

 through collateral running may be estimated. 



III. 



Many persons who take for granted things that do 

 not occur, and who believe in that kind of racing 

 superstition which would ahva3's give the victory to 

 the favourite, and who never think of inquiring 

 minutely for themselves, will be a little surprised to 

 learn that even in the classic races, where, as has been 

 hinted, the form of all the runners can be perfectly 

 well ascertained, the odds at the start, over a series of 

 years, averaofe a rather hirdi fi'j^ure for the winner. 

 Horses starting at comparatively long prices have fre- 

 cpjently won the Uerb}', Oaks, and St. Leger — the 

 favourite sometimes being, as they say in racing 

 circles, ' nowhere,' or, to put the case gently, beaten. 

 In big handicaps the same fate often enough befalls 

 horses which start as ' hot ones.' Without troubling 

 the reader with a phalanx of figures on the subject, it 

 may be mentioned, with respect to the Ccsarewitch, 

 that the price of the winner at the start for the race in 

 1869-70 was 20 to 1 ; in 1873, 22 to 1 ; in 1874, 25 to 

 1 ; in 1878, 20 to 1 ; in 1879, 22 to 1 ; in some pre- 

 vious years even longer odds than these are recorded. 

 Of the Cambridgeshire horses, it falls to be related 

 that, on occasion, very long odds have been obtained 

 just before the race was decided ; examples may be 



