Some trainers, it is well known, bet only with the cognisance of those for whom they train, that is to say, if they think the horse has a good chance of winning the race he has been entered for. Other trainers bet on their own behalf, either personally or by the aid of a friend or a commissioner. The trainer of a horse which won the Derby a few years ago was said to have risked on his chance the enormous stake of £7,000. The case of Bob Leathers was much talked about a few years since. He had two horses in training for a big handicap for one owner. One, the worse of the two, as Leathers well knew, was at a short price, the other was at 20 to 1. The trainer piled the money on the non-favourite, but the fact coming at length to the knowledge of the owner, he quietly scratched both horses a few days before the race, and Leathers and his pals were left lamenting; as all who knew the particulars said, "It served them right." It is not the first occasion on which it has been asked: "How curious it is that Mr. Bloom's horses are always so unsteady in the market, seeing that he never bets!" The reply to such a remark is likely to be: "Oh, but his trainer does, and you know he and Binks, the bookmaker, are almost always together." The inference is obvious. Again, Mr. Trumper keeps a very large stud, and pays his training bills with exemplary punctuality; but for all that Mr. Trumper is only the nominal possessor of so many race-horses. Ted Rubyman, the well-known turf commissioner, keeps the key of the stable, and Mr. Trumper's horses only "spin" when Rubyman finds it to his advantage that they should do so, and at all times the commissioner has the best of it. If Trumper's horses are not trying, it is certain that they have been well milked for behoof of trainer and commissioner. In consequence, old Robert Girth, Trumper's trainer, is a rich man, who could at any moment throw up training and live upon his means. _Verb. sap._ In such matters a strong arm is required to wield the besom of turf reform. One other subject may be now discussed. Gentlemen are known to give heavy presents to jockeys riding in a race in which they themselves have a competing animal. Surely that practice is indefensible--in the opinion of the writer it is very reprehensible, and ought to be sternly put down. For one owner of a horse riding in a race to say to a boy who is piloting another gentleman's animal in the same contest, "I have put you on a hundred to nothing, my lad, if I win," is little less than criminal.