Many good and honestly trained horses unexpectedly suffer defeat, a result which on some occasions is difficult to account for. When such an event takes place, "would-be wise persons" shake their heads in the "I told you so" style, and hint at foul play. It frequently happens, however, that horses which run well at home are unable from some cause or other to make a successful effort on a racecourse. Horses, like human beings, it may be taken for granted, are not always "i' the vein," and so owners and trainers who calculate on success are often much puzzled by results which they had not the prescience to anticipate. Many an animal good enough to win a race by twenty lengths has suffered defeat almost at the outset of the struggle. In such cases trainers have evil times of it: should the horse run up to the anticipation founded on the trial, it is spoken of as a great animal; should it lose, the trainer may be looked upon with suspicion or the jockey be blamed for losing the race.
"The chicanery of the turf," it has often been said, "is boundless," but what is done is being accomplished in a manner so refined, and at the same time is so quietly done, that the outside public have no chance of detecting it. Nor does anything accomplished in the way of "polite fraud" call for the interference of the police; betting is without the pale of ordinary law, so that all concerned carry on the game with immunity from consequences. When what is called "a great handicap coup" is achieved, it usually happens that a greater number of persons will be found to have backed the losers than the winner, because it does not suit those who are "working the oracle" to allow the real merits of the horse they have planned to win with to become known to all and sundry, for the very excellent reason that in such a case it would come to a short price in the betting, which would be altogether foreign to the plans of those working the scheme. On the other hand, it is desirable that as many of the horses in the race should be heavily backed at a short price as is possible, so that the bookmakers shall have no scarcity of money with which to pay the sums they have laid against the winner. As a general rule, in all great handicap coups, it is usual for one or two bookmakers to be in what is called "the swim," and these are generally selected because of their prudence; bookmakers do not, as a rule, wear their hearts on their sleeves.
III.
The planning and working of a handicap coup, by which a sum of from twenty to forty thousand pounds may be netted by a clever clique of racing experts, may be figuratively described.
The first thing to be observed is that such a matter cannot be organised in a week or even in a month. The long-headed turf expert who strikes for fortune at a blow will probably have been at work upon his scheme for perhaps twelve or eighteen months, or more likely for double that length of time. He will have commenced proceedings perhaps by purchasing, for what is called "an old song," some supposed broken-down and worthless horse, which, however, as his practised eye has discovered, might, if treated with care and properly trained, win a race or two. For a time nothing is heard of the purchase: Conspirator is not entered for any of the passing handicaps and becomes almost forgotten, although, when a two-year-old, it was more than once prophesied that it was a horse likely to be heard of as the winner of some big event. In the course of four or five months it will be announced in the training reports that "Sweatmore, the trainer, took his horses to the North-East Division of the Southside Downs, where Petty Larceny, Burglar, Area Sneak, Impostor, and Conspirator did good work." That announcement indicates the beginning of the end, and by-and-by Conspirator is entered for one or two petty races in which he is supposed to make a fair struggle for victory, carrying a tolerably liberal weight, but particular care is taken by his trainer that he shall not attract much attention. In due time the horse makes his appearance in a struggle of importance, in which he is weighted more favourably than was expected; but for all that, his time has not yet come—the astute gentleman who pulls the strings in the stable can wait a long time should he think a victory can be won in the end. Nothing is ever gained in horse-racing by being in a great hurry, and the horse hitherto has been entered simply to find out the handicappers' estimate of him.
"Seven stone five; not bad that for a five-year-old which three years ago was thought to have the makings of a fair horse about him," says the trainer; "but we must get him in at less than that by at least half a stone."
Just so. Nothing, it has been said, is denied to persons who know how to wait. "Conspirator ran very badly," is the verdict of the turf critic, "never once giving his supporters a ray of hope, although evidently backed to win a considerable sum of money; it is not easy to understand why such a horse is in training."
For the next two races in which he is entered Conspirator does not accept, although in one of them he has only the nice weight of 6 st. 10 lb. to carry.
"He could win with that," says his trainer; "but with two or three pounds less it would be real jam."
"All right," replies the man who is working the oracle; "we must send him to run for the Great Jericho Stakes in August, and get him well beaten; in the meantime he has been entered for the Haymarket Handicap, the weights for which come out two days after the Jericho race has been decided, and then we can determine what to do, eh?"