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

Critics and tipsters who attempt a week or ten days before the battle begins to point out the victor have a rather hard task set them, but on some occasions the winner is "spotted" with wonderful precision. As a matter of course, in dog prophecy as in predicting winners of horse-races, the tipsters either "follow the money" or depend on "public form" to pull them through.

Great complaints have been made in various quarters about the chicanery which in some years has been associated with the Waterloo Cup. Certain members of the committee are very jealous of the honour of this great coursing match being kept as free from any stain as possible; but those who have carefully studied the incidents of the great Altcar gathering are perfectly convinced that there is in connection with it, to designate it mildly, a good deal of "finessing": and a large amount of the gambling element has long been a most prominent feature of the meeting. In some years plenty of wagering takes place. The Waterloo Cup being set for decision at a season of the year when much horse-racing cannot take place, and when betting on horse-racing is not at all brisk, commands the speculation of the moment, and gives rise in consequence to a vast amount of gambling. As a popular writer on the turf says, the dogs give occasion for "one of the biggest gambles of the season."

So long as the Cup is constituted as at present, this game of speculation will continue. The gentlemen who have subscribed to the stake do not require to nominate the dog they intend to run till the evening preceding the first day of contest. It is obvious, therefore, that by this plan of procedure there is room for any amount of "manœuvring," and that a nomination may be backed to win perhaps £20,000 at pretty long odds, while in the end a dog may be named to fill it which, had its name been known, would have caused the nomination in which it was to run to become first favourite. This will be better explained by imagining that the present year's winner will be able to run again next year; if so, and the nomination in which it is to run be made public, it will assuredly be backed at a very short price, say 7 or 8 to 1, long before the night of the draw; indeed, the moment betting begins, which is usually about the middle of January or earlier, it will figure in all the lists as "first favourite." But supposing the dog were next year to belong to a gambling owner, he would never be a party to its running at any such odds as has been indicated; he would want most likely, for the benefit of himself and friends, to back the animal to win some £20,000, and the longer the odds he could obtain the less risk he would have of losing money; therefore, he looks about him to find some gentleman possessed of a nomination but without a dog good enough to run in such an important stake as the Waterloo Cup. That gentleman's nomination may be quoted in the public betting at 50 or 66 to 1, so that if it can be arranged that he shall run the dog, a large sum of money may be won (in the event of victory) at excellent odds as prices are now arranged.

This sort of thing has occasionally taken place, some of the tactics employed being scandalous enough; but where there is gambling there must in time be scandal. Large sums change hands over this great dog contest, because, in addition to the "long odds" against a dog winning the stake right out, there is an immensity of speculation on every separate course, when the "short odds" are taken against one dog beating the one which goes to slips with it. Probably there will be five or six thousand persons present at the contest busy betting on every course, and in this way, in the course of the three days during which the battle wages, many thousand pounds will certainly change hands.

Prizes are provided for the thirty-two dogs which are beaten in the first round of the Cup; these are the Purse and Plate, on which (locally) a vast amount of betting also takes place. No calculation of the amount of money which changes hands or is betted on the great Altcar contest has ever been made. It has, however, been more than once publicly stated that a Waterloo dog can be, and has been, backed to win a sum of £40,000 for behoof of its owner and his friends and followers, while it is often enough the case that dogs hailing from some populous locality, dogs which have a name, are entrusted with the sovereigns of four or five thousand persons. It would be no exaggeration to say, generally, of the Waterloo Cup that probably a dozen out of the sixty-four dogs nominated will be backed on the average to win (at the long odds) £25,000 each, whilst ten may be entrusted with the odds to win some £10,000, making for these dogs a sum of £400,000, which has been laid at various rates of odds, and it may be taken that the other forty-two dogs will be backed before the contest is over to win £100,000. Only one dog, of course, can win, so that as a rule bookmakers should be largely in pocket, especially when most of the favourites are beaten in the first round—no improbable event; other animals then come into prominence and are heavily backed. A provincial bookmaker, who never betted to more than pound stakes, told the writer that on the first two days of Snowflight's year (1882) he gained a clear profit of £279, and being quite pleased, stopped business and contented himself the last day with looking on at the gambling of others, and so making his visit to Altcar a profitable and pleasant holiday.

Two thousand people, it is averred, will each bet, on the average, £1 over every course which is run at Altcar, which, on the Cup alone, would represent in stakes alone a sum of over £125,000. These figures—they are but rough calculations at their best—may be taken for what they are worth, as affording an index of the gambling which is incidental to the modern "Battle of Waterloo."

Apropos to the name "Waterloo" Cup, it may be mentioned that it is not at all of heroic origin; as a matter of fact, the stake originated in the Waterloo Hotel, at Liverpool, which has long since disappeared, its site being included in the buildings of the central station. This hotel was in its day a hostelry of some degree of fame and a choice resort of the coursing fraternity. In that house, then, in the year 1835 the stake was originated, and run for in the following spring for the first time, eight dogs only taking part in the contest, the winner being Melanie, a dog belonging to Mr. Lynn, the landlord of the house. Such was the origin of the present great Altcar contest. At first an eight dog stake, it speedily became one for sixteen and then for thirty-two greyhounds. In 1857 the Waterloo Cup reached its present dimensions, and has ever since continued a sixty-four dog stake.

III.

Many who desire to become rich with rapidity think the turf a smooth road to fortune. Every few weeks an appetising paragraph "goes the round," telling the world that another fortune has been won on the racecourse, that Mr. So-and-So has "landed" £25,000 by the victory of a horse in one of the popular handicaps! Such an announcement excites the cupidity of hundreds, and so a rush takes place to back many horses for the next important struggle. Very few who try succeed; fortunes, they soon find out, come only to the fortunate, and in time many of the eager fighters for the favour of the blind goddess find themselves hors de combat, and then retire disgusted from the arena. A few doughty combatants fight on in the hope of ultimate success, one of them, perhaps, to find, after many days, that he has become enriched during the struggle.