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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IV, Issue 204, 21 June 1894, Page 5

After considerable foreshadowing the American Jockey Club is an accomplished fact. The bringing into being of the club is doubtless the result of the recent stoppage of racing in New Jersey by the Legislature. It was seen that what had been done in New Jersey would be done in other states unless racing authorities put their shoulder to the wheel and formed a governing club to control affairs, purify the turf, and remedy the existing evils which had raised the overwhelming opposition to racing shown by the New Jersey people. One of the promoters of the Jockey Club in the course of a speech to the delegates remarked that without doubt the turf was suffering from the overtaxing of bookmakers by the various clubs for revenue purposes. Such exorbitant fees were charged the ring men that they found it impossible to live by fair dealing and consequently were compelled to get their money by crooked means, resulting, of course, in a plentiful crop of turf scandals. This, it was stated, was to be abolished by the Jockey Clubs preventing the metallicians being placed under the burden of paying impossible betting fees. A suggestion has been made to the newly formed club to follow the English precedent and decline to recognise betting, but at the same time to charge admission to the betting ring as is the case at home. This would give clubs a handsome revenue, and would press not only on the bookmaker but on the backer as well. A further suggestion is made that the club should adopt the totalisator. The premier racing journal in the States is the Spirit of the Times, and a writer who advocates the adoption of the instrument that never lies (in the hands of honest agents) argues that theadoption of the French mutuel system would be a great step towards the purification of the turf. The incentive to wrong doing, he argues, would be reduced to a minimum. “ Under our present system trainers, owners, and bookmakers who are not over scrupulous have every opportunity to reap dishonest gains. A trainer or owner can ask a bookmaker to lay up

against his horse, and so win at least a moderate amount on a certainty. This would be impossible under the French system. The difficulty in the way of the general introduction of the French machines in this country has been the opposition of the bookmakers, The machines have never had a fair trial on a large scale except at Brighton Beach, and there it has been proven beyond all question that they have the capacity to handle a large volume of business. It is simply a matter of getting enough of them. The mutuel machines have now been perfected until they afford a well nigh perfect system of betting. They establish legitimate market quotations and protect the public in every way, while the usual five per cent, commission would undoubtedly provide the associations with revenues that would average throughout the season quite as much as is now derived from the assessment of bookmakers.” The journal quoted has also been attracted by the blind totalisator proposition sketched in the columns of the Australasian some little time back, and recommends it as a means whereby the advantages of the French system might be obtained without placing owners under the disadvantage which the ordinary totalisator provides for their behoof.