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With this cynically corrupt corps of jockeys and their hangers-on, it may easily be seen that the plutocrats who manipulate the Turf wires have an admirable time of it, while the great gaping mob of zanies who go to races, and zanies who stay at home, are readily bled by the fellows who have the money and the “information” and the power. The rule of the Turf is easily formulated:–“Get the better of your neighbour. Play the game outwardly according to fair rules. Pay like a man if your calculations prove faulty, but take care that they shall be as seldom faulty as possible. Never mind what you pay for information if it gives you a point the better of other men. Keep your agents honest if you can, but, if they happen to be dishonest under pressure of circumstances, take care at any rate that you are not found out.” In short, the Ring is mainly made up of men who pay with scrupulous honesty when they lose, but who take uncommonly good care to reduce the chances of losing to a minimum. Are they in the wrong? It depends. I shall not, at the present moment, go into details; I prefer to pause and ask what can be expected to result from the wolfish scheme of Turf morality which I have indicated. I do not compare it with the rules which guide our host of commercial middlemen, because, if I did, I should say that the betting men have rather the best of the comparison: I keep to the Turf, and I want to know what broad consequences must emanate from a body which organizes plans for plunder and veils them under the forms of honesty. An old hand–the Odysseus of racing–once said to me: “No man on earth would ever be allowed to take a hundred thousand pounds out of the Ring: they wouldn’t allow it, they wouldn’t That young fool must drop all he’s got.” We were speaking about a youthful madman who was just then being plucked to the last feather, and I knew that the old turfite was right. The Ring is a close body, and I have only known about four men who ever managed to beat the confederacy in the long run. There is one astute, taciturn, inscrutable organizer whom the bookmakers dread a little, because he happens to use their own methods; he will scheme for a year or two if necessary until he succeeds in placing a horse advantageously, and he usually brings off his coup just at the time when the Ring least like it. “They don’t yell like that when one of mine rolls home,” he once said, while the bookmakers were clamouring with delight over the downfall of a favourite; and indeed this wily master of deceptions has very often made the pencillers draw long faces. But the case of the Turf Odysseus is not by any means typical; the man stands almost alone, and his like will not be seen again for many a day. The rule is that the backer must come to grief in the long run, for every resource of chicanery, bribery, and resolute keenness is against him. He is there to be plundered; it is his mission in life to lose, or how could the bookmakers maintain their mansions and carriages? It matters little what the backer’s capital may be at starting, he will lose it all if he is idiot enough to go on to the end, for he is fighting against unscrupulous legions. One well-known bookmaker coolly announced in 1888 that he had written off three hundred thousand pounds of bad debts. Consider what a man’s genuine business must be like when he can jauntily allude to three hundred thousands as a bagatelle by the way. That same man has means of obtaining “information” sufficient to discomfit any poor gambler who steps into the Ring and expects to beat the bookmakers by downright above-board dealing. As soon as he begins to lay heavily against a horse the animal is regarded as doomed to lose by all save the imbeciles who persist in hoping against hope. In 1889 this betting man made a dead set at the favourite for the Two Thousand Guineas. The colt was known to be the best of his year; he was trained in a stable which has the best of reputations; his exercise was uninterrupted, and mere amateurs fancied they had only to lay heavy odds on him in order to put down three pounds and pick up four. Yet the inexorable bookmaker kept on steadily taking the odds; the more he betted, the more money was piled on to the unbeaten horse, and yet few took warning, although they must have seen that the audacious financier was taking on himself an appalling risk. Well, the peerless colt was pulled out, and, on his way to the starting post, he began to shake blood and matter from his jaws; he could hardly move in the race, and when he was taken to his quarters a surgeon let out yet another pint of pus from the poor beast’s jaw. Observe that the shrewdest trainer in England, a crowd of stable-boys, the horse’s special attendant, the horse-watchers at Kingsclere, and the casual strangers who saw the favourite gallop–all these knew nothing apparently about that monstrous abscess, and no one suspected that the colt’s jaw had been splintered. But “information”–always information–evidently reached one quarter, and the host of outsiders lost their money. Soon afterwards a beautiful colt that had won the Derby was persistently backed for the City and Suburban Handicap. On paper it seemed as if the race might be regarded as over, for only the last year’s Derby winner appeared to have a chance; but our prescient penciller cared nothing about paper. Once more he did not trouble himself about betting to figures; he must have laid his book five times over before the flag fell. Then the nincompoops who refused to attend to danger-signals saw that the beautiful colt which had spun over the same course like a greyhound only ten months before was unable to gallop at all. The unhappy brute tried for a time, and was then mercifully eased; the bookmaker would have lost L100,000 if his “information” had not been accurate, but that is just the crux–it was. So admirably do the bookmakers organize their intelligence department that I hardly know more than three instances in which they have blundered after they really began to lay fiercely against a horse. They contrive to buy jockeys, stablemen, veterinary surgeons–indeed, who can tell whom they do not subsidize? When Belladrum came striding from the fateful hollow in front of Pretender, there was one “leviathan” bookmaker who turned green and began to gasp, for he stood to lose L50,000; but the “leviathan” was spared the trouble of fainting, for the hill choked the splendid Stockwell horse, and “information” was once more vindicated, while Belladrum’s backers paid copious tribute. Just two years before the leviathan had occasion to turn green our Turf Odysseus really did manage to deceive the great betting corporation with consummate skill. The whole business throws such a clear light on Turf ethics that I may repeat it for the benefit of those who know little about our great national sport–the Sport of Kings. It was rumoured that Hermit had broken a blood-vessel, and the animal was stopped for a little in his work. Then Odysseus and his chief confederate proceeded to seize their chance. The horse started at 1000 to 15, and it seemed like a million to one against him, for his rough coat had been left on him, and he looked a ragged equine invalid. The invalid won, however, by a neck, the Marquis of Hastings was ruined, and the confederates won about L150,000.