THE SOCIAL SIDE OF RACING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 757, 8 September 1904, Page 12

THE SOCIAL SIDE OF RACING.

The very marked changes that have come about in the turf w’orld during recent times have been (says the “Field”), perhaps most pronounced on the social side. The horses that race are very much what they always have been, and the ever present question “Which are the best, those of the past or those of the present ?” provides a healthy bone of contention for all time apparently, for it can certainly never be settled to the satisfaction of both parties of thought. That the horse of today is any better off in point of lux urious ease than his forerunner of the earlier half of the century can scarcely be maintained, for the fact that he is whisked hither and thither by railway train instead of having to walk from course to course brings with it the more than counterbalancing condition # that an animal may race to-day in the south of England, and to-morrow at a place 200 miles or more northward. Were the horses consulted, they would no doubt prefer less- racing with the?' penalty of transit on their own legs, to the existing state of things. In everything that affects the large number of persons who either live by, or find their principal source of amusement and recreation in, racing, changes that force themselves upon the notice have been? brought about, or, where they are slow in making their appearance, the laggards are being goaded into ioining the ranks of the advanced brigade. That sufficient people remain who are satisfied to race under the old uncomfortable conditions, and that meetings where they are preserved still continue to pay their way, is but another instance of the extremely hard deaths which our social traditions die. But it does not follow that that class will be perpetuated, for every indication is presented that it is dying out fast, and is being superseded bv one that appreciates a better state of things. In the way he goes racing the son is by no means content to do as his father did, and it is quite certain that the meeting of the future, if it is to be a paying concern, will be one in which the creature comforts of spectators are considered to be of equal importance with the provision of good stakes.