CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
AN
EXERCISE GALLOP TO BEGIN WITH.
The details of the "Sport of Kings" embraced in the following pages, do not claim to be a consecutive history of the turf, nor are they intended for the instruction of professional racing men. The author makes no pretensions to teach trainers how to train horses, or jockeys how to ride them, and in no sense, except that it is offered for their perusal, is the work intended for those who make the "business" of the turf the work of their lives; the book has been written for other persons and other purposes.
It is necessary to state this much plainly, because when a paper or an article pertaining to the "great national sport" appears in a review or magazine, it is at once stigmatised by the sporting journals as containing only "pipers' news," and in the view of the critics it may be so; but such articles are not written to instruct the critics, but to inform the public.
Histories and other works dealing with horse-racing have at intervals been published, while at the present time there are three daily journals as well as a dozen weekly papers exclusively devoted to what has been called "the great game," and other sports. In addition to these, nearly all the daily newspapers contain full accounts of the race meetings, and also publish weekly commentaries on the sport at considerable length, the reading of which tends to excite interest and provoke inquiry regarding the incidence of "the turf."