222 THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE TURF. 



I never could Iparn for certain how the officers had 



efot tlieir information so loiiii^ before we cfot ours, but 



heard afterwards they had obtained the news from 



the stage before Haddington by means of flying 



pigeons, one of the sergeants of their regiment having 



trained them. Before coming to my place they had 



called in at the Black Bull and laid against the 



favourite to a good tune, and when they got to the 



billiard-room they got another hundred about Spaniel.' 



Epsom races of the present day and of Amato's 



time present a wonderful contrast. Private boxes in 



the stand were undreamt of, and there 



i^'^'^"r,^(/ o^f were no T.ittersall's or other enclosures 



the Monnnij ^s now. The weighinsr-room and business 



Font. 



offices were in the small building oppo- 

 site the winning-post at present known as the Angle- 

 sey Stand ; and after the ring broke up in the town 

 the horsemen reassembled around the ' betting-post ' 

 on the hill, near the extremity of the loop of the 

 present Metropolitan Course. A great deal of betting 

 took place in Epsom before the races in those days, 

 and whilst engaged in recording the same I happened 

 to be standing wdthin a couple of yards of Lord George 

 Bentinck on the broad step in front of the Spread 

 Eagle in Running Rein's year (lS-14), when, with his 

 jockey's betting-book open in his hand, his lordship 

 calmly incjuired : ' Has anybody else any bet with 

 Samuel Rogers to compare ?' But the taker of the 

 £10,000 to £1,000 against Ratan from Rogers, which 

 figured at the top of a page, did not come forward to 

 verify the origin of what subsequently developed into 

 the historical ' Ratan aflair,' that hurried Crockford, 



