MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. (London Referee.)

Otago Witness, Issue 1922, 28 September 1888, Page 24

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. (London Referee.)

For a long while most of us could not believe that the anti-roping cruaade advertised by Lord Durham, Mr Lowther, and others would have more than a passing effect, aud a slight one at that, in improving the morality of racing. Further, it appeared that, if jockey, club vigilance and willingness to act against offenders were increased, the chief sufferers might be the public who back horses. Because, you see, it was generally supposed that many favourites got home and were in fact made favourites because, to put ib mildly, matters were made easy with the others for those selected by the talent. The B.P. might not know anything about Mr Arrangement's share in the engineering, but followed the talent and benefited thereby. Therefore the logical conclusion was that if we had more open racing fewer of the favourite division would win, and non-professional backers lose more frequently. Whether the premises or the conclusion is at fault I cannot say, but I can state oq the best authority that since we ran into these new and improved days in which we are all of us almost too honest to get a living, the public, or at any rate backers, have been winning, and bookmakers who stand against public fancies keep losing. They began well with the flat racing's start, but have been dropping money almost ever Bince. lam not with those who think that whatever is bad for the bookies must be good for sport, though I don't want to see them or anyone else get more than a fair working profit. Neither am I likely to fall into such an error as to fancy that the fielders are not likely to be able to take care of themselves in the long run, or play a game for long which does not pay. All that I am pointing out is that of late their business has not paid, and that their lean period coincides with a spell of abnormal detective activity by the Jockey Club, who have certainly scared most of the doubtful jockeys into going straight. (" Rapier " in Sporting and Dramatic.) The number of horses now on the turf that run in cowardly fashion is very large, in all likelihood comparatively much larger than formerly. I was asking Tom Cannon the other day for his experience of the matter, and also for an explanation, and he suggests a very simple and probable cause. There is much more racing than there was formerly, horses run oftener, they are« constantly tried offcener, and the result is that they get sick of racing. They know, in most cases, what a finish means ; very likely a dig with the spur if ib is a close thing ; at the lightest two or three smart cuts with the whip — the old butcher-boy flogging jockey is not common in England, though he is nearly the rule in France — and almost invariably a more or less desperate and distressing effort. Who can doubt; many of them know also that if they do not get too near to the head of affairs, but take it quietly and stay with the ruck, the finish will be much easier ? Very likely the jockey will only ride them with his hands ; at any rate if he takes up his whip and there is no response, in nmny ca'-es he will give it up as a bad job. Horses, as a rule, know so much about racing that they are apt to decline to race.