TURF
.—The turf, when used in a sporting sense, is intended to imply whatever appertains solely to the pleasure of HORSE-RACING, without any collateral signification whatever; custom having established three concise terms, by which the distinct sports may be fully comprehended, and the intentional meaning perfectly understood. The "SOD" is known to be fully expressive of cocking; the "FIELD," of hunting; and the "TURF," of racing; these being the admitted technical terms of the sporting world, to which none else make the least pretensions. The emulative and inspiring pleasures of the turf, like the ecstatic enjoyment of the chase, are too great in their temptation and attractions for the spirited part of mankind to resist. Replete as it is with that great variety which tends to diffuse a genial glow of conscious gratification in every countenance, bespeaking a sense of inexpressible happiness in those who engage in it as spectators only, how much is it to be regretted, that the speed and spirited endeavours of the most beautiful animal in the creation should be prostituted to the worst of purposes!
It can require no trumpet of fame to establish a fact so universally known, that the TURF, with the nocturnal amusement of hazard, (which invariably follows it,) have, in conjunction, destroyed (or rather alienated) more PROPERTY, in the last fifty years, than all the hurricanes within the same given time, from one extremity of the kingdom to the other. Numbers there are at this moment in existence, who formerly possessed their numerous studs, their landed estates, their magnificent mansions, with all the comforts, all the elegant gratifications of life, some of whom are to be found in prisons; others pining in obscurity, severely wounded, even in spirit, by the barbed arrow of adversity; and a third part (by far the most numerous) living upon the liberality and hospitality of their kind and commiserating friends. But that so deep and desponding a shade may not cast too great a gloom over the picture for want of contrast, let the eye turn to an imaginary view of those likewise living, who, during the last thirty years of the fifty already alluded to, have risen from the very lowest classes of society, to a degree of opulence beyond every moderate conception; when a few moments of retrospection may serve to convince the ruminative observer, that, however largely the ARTS and SCIENCES may be admitted to have improved, they bear no proportion to the pecuniary improvements of the arts either upon the turf or at the gaming table. No man of unsullied honour, and strict integrity, can become successful, for any length of time, amidst a horde of determined depredators; experience having fully proved, that the most princely fortune cannot sustain itself against the stratagems of such villainous combinations.
The TURF, in respect to its pleasures, pursued with prudence, and entered into with moderation, by those whose immense property will admit of its support, is certainly one of the most noble, exhilarating, and amusing gratifications in the long catalogue of human enjoyments; but, unfortunately, there is the same insatiate infection in ambition as in wealth, and neither one, more than the other, are ever to be satisfied. From this inordinate thirst of fame, this furor of fashion, this excess of inconsideracy, has recently arisen RACING STUDS of such rapacious enormity, that they have reduced to a degraded state of necessity, many of the most opulent and most dignified individuals in his Majesty's dominions; to whom it must prove, upon the downy pillow of repentant reflection, a most mortifying retrospection, that, notwithstanding the thousands upon thousands ingulphed within the vortex of the TURF, there has been hardly an instance in which they have been enabled to become the guardians of their own honour, the protectors of their own property, or barely thought worthy of being entrusted with the secrets of their own stables; for the subordinates in a training establishment have their cards to play as well as their superiors; and having skill enough, in the language of Tony Lumpkin in the comedy, "to manage their own affairs by the rule of thumb," they do not omit to recollect the ancient axiom, that self-preservation is the first or most predominant law in nature.
The noblemen and gentlemen of the Jockey Club at Newmarket, have adopted every means, that superior wisdom could possibly devise, to restrain villainy, and reward integrity: but so long as human depravity shall have power to retain a seat within the heart; so long as the secret betting emoluments of the subordinates may be more increased by deceptively opposing, than by promoting the interest of their EMPLOYERS; so long as a pail of water, a nauseating ball, or half a peck of corn, can be privately administered in the night, or a horse rode on the wrong side of the post by day; no man existing (however dignified his station, however benevolent his heart, however expanded his mind, and liberal his hand) must expect to see the TURF rise from its late public and well-known degradation, to a state of the so-much-wished-for perfection.