IN THE KNOW.
(By Mr. Punch's Own Prophet.)
There has been lately some racing at Kempton and various other places, as to which, I ought perhaps to say a few words. Not that I acknowledge a right in anyone to dictate to me how and when I shall notice matters connected with the turf. The Bedlamites who mouth and gibber about horses and their owners, as if they were in the constant habit of living on terms of familiar intimacy with the aristocracy, instead of being, as they probably are, the dumpling-headed parasites of touts and stable-boys, are entitled only to the contempt of every decent man who knows anything about what he professes to understand. At any rate, they have mine. My knowledge of the Kempton Course dates back at least fifty years. To be sure, it was not at that time a racecourse, but was mostly ploughed fields and thickets. But if the anserous and asinine mooncalves, whose high priest is Mr. Jeremy, suppose that that fact in any way weakens the authority with which I may claim to speak on the subject, I can only assure them, that they prove themselves fit inmates for the various asylums from which they ought never to have been withdrawn. I never thought much of Philomel. Ten years ago, I observed, with regard to this animal, "Philomel must be watched. There is no knowing what a course of podophyllin and ginger might not do. Failing that, I should feel inclined to say, buncombe." Mr. J. says, this was a different mare. What of that? In turf matters the name is everything, and I am therefore justified in citing this as one of the most extraordinary instances of prescience known to the turf world.
Megatherium, I notice, has many admirers. As a horizontal bar, or possibly as a clothes-line, he might have merits, but as a horse, I must confess, he has little to recommend him. When Loblolly Boy cantered home for the East End Weight-for-age Welter Handicap, I said that the son of Rattlesnake could make mince-meat of all his rivals. Since then he has made for his owner £5,000,000 in added money, at an initial expense of twopence halfpenny for saveloys and onions, a combination of which this splendid animal is particularly fond. Loblolly Boy was by Rowdy out of Hoyden, and his pedigree mounts up to Sallycomeup, Kissmequick, and Curate on Toast, whilst in the collateral line he can claim kinship with Artaxerxes and Devil's Dustpan. In the Margate Open Sweepstakes, he ran second to Daddy, when the sea was as smooth as an old halfcrown. If there had been wind enough to blow out a wooden match, he must have won in a common hand-gallop.
