A Mirror of the Turf; Or, The Machinery of Horse-Racing Revealed, Showing the Sport of Kings as It Is To-DayBertram, James Glass
History
A Mirror of the Turf; Or, The Machinery of Horse-Racing Revealed, Showing the Sport of Kings as It Is To-Day
Bertram, James Glass
Horse racing -- Great Britain
By way of contrast to this prudent Yorkshireman, take the case of a
young fellow who a good many years ago flashed upon the turf like a
meteor. Winning £300 when Caractacus won the Derby, he followed up his
success at Epsom by bagging a large amount at Ascot, and the like good
fortune attending his efforts at Goodwood, at the end of the year he
left off with an addition to his bank account of £2,700. Extraordinary
to relate, he was equally successful in the following year, but a
change of fortune overtook him at last, and from being a swell of the
first water, constantly in luck, always feasting on fat things, he
gradually fell and fell till, in a few years, he was glad to earn a
shilling or two at race meetings by acting as a peripatetic tipster.
Many stories of a like kind are doubtless known to persons who are
acquainted with the ever-changing incidents of our race meetings.
Apropos to betting for cash, one of the most singular utterances
that has ever appeared against the "principle" of betting for ready
money is that of Mr. William Day, published in one of the monthly
miscellanies, and in which he describes that mode of betting as a
"pernicious system," as "the greatest pest of society, the current evil
of the day." Further, Mr. Day says the practice of ready money betting
is "a blot on the nationality of every Englishman!" Unfortunately for
himself, Mr. Day stultifies his own arguments against ready money
betting by his advocacy of the Pari-mutuel plan of backing horses,
which is a ready money system of betting _par excellence_, the adoption
of which Mr. Day thinks would put a stop to reckless speculation, as,
indeed, would ready money betting conducted through the medium of the
bookmakers (who ought to be licensed).
The writer of these pages, as is obvious enough, is quite of the same
opinion as Mr. Day, that "so long as a man can go into the ring and
bet his untold thousands upon race after race, not having as many
hundreds to pay his losses with, so long as he can find usurers to
supply him with the needful to be paid on the Monday after, then so
long, too, will he continue to bet, little caring what he pays for the
convenience; as things are he is compelled to raise funds to save his
credit and his respect among his aristocratic associates, but in the
other case (of Pari-mutuel betting) there would not be such pressing
necessity for him to have the money."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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