THE HORSE. 
19 
THE RACE-HORSE. 
human nature elsewhere justifies. The first admission on record of a jockey betting on the horse opposed to that which he him¬ 
self rode, is by the elder Chifney. He lost the race, but he justifies himself by saying, that he knew the horse he rode was 
unfit to win. The argument of the jockey is not worth the tassel of his velvet cap; and the principle contended for needs only 
a little extension to justify every kind of roguery. This very jockey lived to acquire a splendid stud, to build houses, to sport his 
equipage, and to experience the revolution of fortune’s wheel, by dying a beggar. But the training-grooms, more trusted still, what 
can be said of their concern with the gambling speculations, by which their interest and their duty may be placed at variance ? 
What need of their master-key to guard their troughs from the introduction of the arsenic or sublimate, or of the live fishes, to 
show that the water is as pure as their own thoughts ? A few orders of the head-groom on the training-ground, a few doses out 
of time of Barbadoes aloes, a gentle opiate from the apothecary’s shop, all for the health of the horse, will answer every end. 
Or, should these disgraces riot be perpetrated, how many are the means by which races may be lost and won ! A simple breach 
of confidence may answer the end; information may be conveyed sufficient to neutralize the hopes of the confiding employer, and the 
one Book be made square although the other may become a memorandum of ruin. It were most harsh, most unjust, to say that, 
amongst the training grooms of our great courses, there are not, and have not been, many worthy men, as incorruptible as the proudest 
that can command their services, and the more to be honoured that they are exposed to such corruptions. It is the system which is 
here in question, which places men’s interest in opposition to their duty, and leads them into a temptation too strong for human 
weakness. That it is through the inferior instruments employed that the higher and more guilty agents are enabled to move their 
machinery of fraud is beyond a question; for how should a race be lost at will, if those who ride the horses or prepare them for 
the turf were not implicated ? These superior agents may indeed directly influence the jockeys, and we must pity the poorer riders 
who are required to lose a race, although the scoundrels that corrupt them are able to reward their obedience. It is the first 
lesson in deception they receive, the effect of which is to rear up a generation of profligates, ready to sell their services, until they 
shall have acquired the means to set up for themselves. But it is apparent that the facilities for this kind of corruption are im¬ 
measurably increased when the superior jockeys and trainers enter on the turf as principals, and become necessarily implicated 
in the same class of proceedings. Therefore, we say, that the strictest means ought to be adopted for preventing trainers and 
jockeys from engaging in the gambling business of the turf. 
Of the effects *f this system of pollution, the proceedings of the modern turf are a continued exemplification. It has almost 
ceased to be the practice to bet on horses from a simple knowledge of their powers and qualities as exhibited by their public 
running. The bet is often founded on private information, purchased at a high price, and by a betraying of confidence; or on a 
knowledge of what parties bet for or against certain horses. The trumps are marked and the pack shuffled by those who are deepest 
in the game, while others are content to observe their superiors in intelligence, and to play their own stakes accordingly. When 
a number of influential bettors back a horse to lose, he will be a bold man who will back him to win, founded on mere knowledoe 
of the animal’s powers. One of the best authorities upon such subjects declares, that a horse “ with the best blood of England in 
his veins, and the best jockey on his back, shall have no more chance to win when backed heavily to lose than a jack-ass ” 
Another authority, himself a rider and owner of race-horses, long ago declared, that if Eclipse were now in the field, and heavily 
backed to lose by certain influential bettors, he would have no more chance to win than if he had the use of only three of his legs. 
In the great Derby stakes of 1832, in which a chestnut colt, St Giles, of no peculiar promise, was the winner, it was believed that 
every horse but one had been “ made safe;” and other examples could be given, in which similar suspicions, whether well founded 
or not, show the opinion of the parties best qualified to judge, of the integrity of those on whom the winning or losing of the race 
depends. Such is the condition to which the English turf is reduced by confederacies of gamblers and swindlers, who are able to 
apply their illgotten gains to contaminate the whole body of those whom money can render subservient to them. It is only within 
a period comparatively short that this practice of wholesale villany has arrived at its full maturity of system, and that persons 
raised from the lowest conditions of life, and pursuing gambling as a trade, have acquired that influence on the turf which enables 
them to move the inferior puppets at their will, and elbow from their proper place the legitimate supporters of this ancient sport 
of the people. That abuses, and grievous ones, have always existed in the system, is too true; but these abuses were as dust in 
the balance to the heavy mass of profligacy and dishonour which now weighs down the scale. Foreigners will hear with wonder 
that, not in the city of London only, but in many of the larger provincial towns, there are regular establishments, where betting 
proceeds as systematically and constantly as the business of the Stock Exchange. In one great establishment alone in London 
Tattersal’s, L.100,000 and more sometimes change hands in a day. But this is the regular establishment for gentlemen really 
connected with the turf. There are, however, clubs or houses in the Capital which are mere places of gambling, where the parties 
frequently know nothing of horses except as things to make money of. Many of these are a sort of low taverns, called Sporting 
Public-houses, frequented by broken down hangers-on of the turf, and sharpers of every degree, who bet small sums, and make 
