Whispers of occasional frauds in connection with the Garter of the Turf have, however, been heard, and every now and again it has been held "as curious, to say the least of it, that fillies which ran badly in the One Thousand Guineas should alter their form so much in the Oaks," and _vice versâ_. Once or twice ugly tales have been told about owners who were "open to conviction"; in particular, it was said a few years ago, regarding a gentleman who "stood" to win, and did win, a very large stake over a horse which he had entered for the Derby, that in order to make sure of his being paid his winnings over that race, he would "require" (so he was told by his commissioner, if we may credit the story) to give up his chance of winning the Oaks, which race seemed to be as like a gift to him as the race for the Blue Ribbon proved to be. "Well," said an experienced racing man, "the story may be quite true; one never can tell exactly how the undercurrents of the turf are running, but you may be quite sure of one thing, and that is, that no one connected with the little arrangement would ever open his mouth about it to an outsider. Such doings can, at the best, be only a matter of guess work, and, on the principle that a man may do as he likes with his own, it is nobody's business." That is one way of putting the case, and that "a man's horse is his own and he can do with it as he pleases," has often figured as an excuse for very flagrant instances of turf immorality; but, it has been suggested that the Oaks has been less marked by chicanery than other races. III. THE DERBY. One hundred and ten years have elapsed since Diomed won the first race for what has since been called the "Blue Ribbon of the Turf," and to-day the Derby is as much in favour as it has been in any previous year. Countless thousands assemble on Epsom Downs to witness each recurring anniversary. During the first thirty years of its existence the race was of slow growth so far as the subscribers and the number of horses running was concerned, but its popularity was soon to grow, and considering the difficulties of locomotion on bad roads and other obstructions, the attendance on the Downs on the day set for the great struggle became very considerable, although nothing like what it was destined to become when railways had made travelling easy and inexpensive.