180 THE RACE AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES. 
To the second of these questions, the gallant Captain 
replies :— 
“Not in this instance. In the first place, if you choose to 
back another man’s horse, you do so at your own risk. [I 
have hardly ever known an instance of gentlemen losing their 
money on the turf, especially those not much on the turf, when 
they do not conceive that they have lost their money rather 
from roguery of others than from their own stupidity ; they 
had always much sooner make out the rest of the world to 
be rogues than that they themselves were fools.” 
To question number three his answer is :— 
“He might have reason to complain, yet I would afford 
him no redress, for he has no right to bet on that particular 
horse ; no man can say that another's horse can win. He may 
imagine such a horse can win, but I defy any man to say 
certainly, such a horse could win and such a horse could not win. 
Some people think that racing is reduced to a great nicety ; 
they imagine that horses always run the same, and they can 
calculate to a nicety what horse can win; but I never met a 
man yet who was able to judge of the transaction ; and not 
only that, but the more persons are conversant with horses, 
the more they will know of the uncertainty of racing. I have 
tried one horse one week, and he has been beaten a quarter 
of a mile; and then perhaps two weeks after, in consequence 
of having a couple of sweats, he has won a second trial on 
the same racing terms.” 
To prove the absurdity of any one being able to say any 
horse could win that had not done so, he goes on to say :— 
“Yes, even forthe jockey. I have often made matches on the 
representation of the jockey, that if he had not done so and 
so he could have won, and in nineteen out of twenty cases I 
have found the jockey wrong; any man who follows the 
advice of his jockey is sure to be ruined.” 
