By the time Northampton is reached, the racing fraternity has been well shaken down, and the new hands in betting and bookmaking have got pretty well mixed up with the old. Acquaintances and "pals" have met once again, and Bill and Tom, and Dick and Harry, have shaken hands, compared notes, and exchanged small talk. All meet on the hail-fellow-well-met system. There is no formality. Nomenclature among the majority of racing-men seldom gets further than the Christian name, and even that must be abridged. The wealthiest bookmaker, no matter that he is able to keep a carriage for "the missus," and half-a-dozen gardeners to grow his grapes, and as many grooms to attend to the horses of his children, is only Ned, or Ted, or Jack, or Jim, to his fellows. In these matters the turf is a sad leveller. I have myself heard Mr. Dawson hailed as "Mat, old man," by a turf loafer whose whole wardrobe would scarcely fetch two half-crowns, and, "Well, Johnny," has been addressed to Mr. Osborne by a half-drunken cabman who fancied he was patronising that well-known horseman by addressing him so familiarly. The late Mr. Merry of St. James's Street, who was long connected with the turf, I remember knocked down a very cheeky turf vagabond, who had the impudence to address him as "Sam" in the presence of some members of his family. It is not my cue to follow the racing crowd on tour, or to fill many of the following pages with an account of what takes place at every place of meeting. The seats of horse-racing are too numerous to admit of their being so dealt with; all I desire to do at present, is simply to give a brief notice of such of the classic horse-racing resorts as are endowed with a history, such as Chester, York, Doncaster, Ascot, Goodwood, and Epsom. The meetings which take place at Sandown and Kempton Parks I leave to be dealt with by other historians. II. To Chester must be awarded the merit of having first established regular meetings. Racing sport at that place has been traced back to the year 1511, since which 380 years have elapsed, and the races at Chester still flourish; the theatre of the annual sports being, as at the time indicated, the Rood Dee, which had always been the arena in which the Chester people displayed their powers. It was there where they contested the palm in archery, pedestrianism, wrestling, and similar sports, and also the place where they exhibited their skill in mimic warfare.