A Mirror of the Turf; Or, The Machinery of Horse-Racing Revealed, Showing the Sport of Kings as It Is To-Day

by James Glass Bertram

Racing to-day spreads itself over a wide field, and to witness the decision of such races as the Derby or St. Leger Stakes, the Chester Cup, the City and Suburban Handicap, or the Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot, tens of thousands will assemble between the classes and the masses, each person seemingly more interested than the other. Some are on the scene from pure love of sport, others from their desire to bet, and when a race is decided, especially one of the great handicaps which give rise to so much betting, tens, nay, hundreds of thousands of pounds will have been lost and won, the sum total being of course made up by a vast number of small and many large transactions.

Varied estimates have been formed of the amount annually expended in betting or horse-racing. At the Doncaster St. Leger Meeting, which lasts four days, there will probably be thirty races run, from four to fifteen horses competing in each. To accommodate the persons who bet on these races there will be on the ground not less, all told, than five hundred bookmakers, and assuming that only £20 are drawn by each of them over every race, that would represent a total amount of £300,000 risked on the thirty races run during the four days. An exponent of racing finance said some years ago, in an article contributed to The Edinburgh Review: "Taking it for granted that £1,500 only is risked by bettors on each of the small races run during the season, and that there are say 2,600 such contests, the total will amount to nearly four millions sterling! To that sum must be added the money risked on the larger races. On the popular betting handicaps, such as that run at Lincoln, the City and Suburban, the Royal Hunt Cup, the Northumberland Plate, and several other important racing events, not forgetting the two great Newmarket handicaps of October, quite a million sterling will be represented."

To affirm that a sum of from four to five million pounds is annually risked in bets on horse-races looks like wishing to play on the credulity of the public, but good reasons exist for believing that the amount named is about right, and under rather than over the real total, could it be ascertained. It is still possible to back a horse running in a big handicap to win from twenty to fifty thousand pounds. Roseberry, the property of Mr. James Smith, won both the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire in the same year; Mr. Smith taking, it was stated at the time, a sum of over a hundred thousand pounds out of the ring by the victory of his horse. The event was remarkable as being the first occasion on which these two races were won by the same animal. The public benefited largely by the victory of Roseberry; it would be no exaggeration perhaps to say that two hundred thousand pounds would fall to be paid in all, but the bookmakers had of course the sums betted against all the other horses that ran to pay with. There were twenty-nine running in that year's Cesarewitch, all of which were backed at some price or other, the favourite, Woodlands, which started at the odds of 4½ to 1 against its chance, being heavily supported.

There are writers on turf matters who maintain that there is not now so much betting as there used to be, but that contention can only apply to particular races; for, as a matter of fact, there is in reality five times the amount of turf speculation to-day that there was forty or fifty years since. Take Scotland as an example; half a century ago there was no person earning a living by "bookmaking" alone. True, the "lists" have been "put down," but clubs have arisen, where betting, as has been stated, is going on every day and all day long. Races to which the lists applied were, comparatively speaking, seldom on the tapis, although betting on them, it is right to say, began long before the day fixed for the event to be decided, so that bettors were afforded ample opportunities to "back their fancy." Even at present there are books open on the Cesarewitch and the Cambridgeshire months before the horses are entered for them.

The English betting men lately carrying on business in the French towns of Boulogne and Calais betted on these handicaps, as may be said, all the year round. These bookmakers betted with all comers chiefly for ready money, and have been known to lay from five to fifteen thousand pounds against each of two or three of the horses engaged in a popular race. With the daily betting now prevalent, and the occasional spurts which take place over important races held at Manchester, Derby, Leicester, Sandown and Kempton Parks, it may be taken for granted that the amounts involved, so far as totals are concerned, are greatly in excess of what they have ever previously been estimated as being.

Those who maintain that "the betting of to-day is nothing to that of forty years ago," usually cite in proof of their assertion the large sums which were wont to change hands over the Derby, such as the £50,000 won over St. Giles, or the £150,000 that Teddington's victory cost the ring, one of the members of which paid one of his customers a sum of £15,000 the morning after the race. Many reminiscences of big sums lost and won over the Blue Ribbon of the Turf have appeared in print, and also of the amounts won at the lists. These were large, no doubt, but the money as a rule went into few hands. When the big bettors, who had the entrée of Tattersall's, were paid their twos and threes or ten thousand pounds the money was exhausted; but not fewer than twelve or fifteen thousand individuals would probably draw from five to fifty pounds each over Bluegown's victory in London, whilst quite as many persons scattered over the United Kingdom would pocket lesser sums.

That the "small money" expended to-day in betting soon accumulates can be easily proved. Here is one way, for instance, of arriving at an illustration: there are at the present time about twelve thousand public-houses in London, nearly all the frequenters of which take some degree of interest in the Derby or other race, and assuming that each house on the average has two hundred and fifty regular customers, of which one hundred will have a bet on some race of the season, that gives a big figure. Should each person back a horse by even the outlay of a modest half-crown, the total money so invested would sum up to the very handsome amount of something like £150,000, and certainly quite as much would be risked by more daring backers.

In this view of the case it is in vain to tell us that betting is declining, either on the Derby or any other event of turf speculation. The great obstacle to big bets being made is the miserly rate of odds now offered by bookmakers. In the case of Surefoot, that did not win the Derby of 1890, the odds laid on that horse at the start required the investment of £90 to win £40, a luxury that only people with more money than brains were able to afford.

In the turf market the bettors—the backers are here meant—have, of course, the worst of the deal throughout, the money risked finding its way into a very few hands at the end of the chapter. Backers come and backers go day by day, but the bookmaker, who plays a prudent part, holds his place and strengthens his position more and more. Those familiar with the incidents of betting know full well that not one backer of horses in every hundred can live at "the game." Most bookmakers see ninety-nine of their clients go down, many of them with great rapidity, the kind, for example, that come on Tuesday morning and are squeezed out by Friday afternoon. Others prolong the struggle for a time by being able to fight a stronger battle, being, perhaps, more prudent or better provided with capital. Few of those who in any one year begin to back horses with the running of the Lincolnshire Handicap are able to live at the business to the date of the Cambridgeshire, which is the last "great" race of the season.