The question of greatest importance in connection with horse-racing
is--does it pay? Does it pay to breed horses or buy expensive
yearlings, and run them merely for the stakes which can be won?
Certainly not! The race-horses of the period are mostly used for
gambling with, and, on the average, do not earn in stakes enough money
to pay trainers' bills and miscellaneous expenses. It is chiefly as
factors in the "great game" that "yearlings" bring those extraordinary
prices so often chronicled. Horses of utility do not fetch sensational
sums as yearlings. Some of the animals, however, which bring small
prices at the yearling sales may, if thought suitable, be bought for
hunters, or for the use of ladies. Messrs. Sangers, of Astley's, have
before now bought horses of choice strains of blood to perform in their
circus.
How can horses which cost two thousand pounds and upwards be made to
pay, except by betting? When an animal is not quite good enough to
figure as a Derby or Cup horse, he may, as the phrase goes, be "bottled
up" and kept to win a large sum of money in a big handicap. That is
the way some men manage to make their horses pay; but even that plan is
precarious, so many are playing the same game. As to winning money on
the turf without betting, it has been shown that, with the aggregate
expenses at double the sum which can be won, it is, as a rule,
impossible. The majority of those now running horses on the turf are
simply gamblers, many of them having gone into the business on a large
scale.
A round dozen of the most enthusiastic supporters of racing, it is
said, do not bet, but are said to breed and run horses for their
own pleasure; but among the many who have registered their colours
will there be a dozen? Mr. Houldsworth is one, and Lord Falmouth was
another. His lordship is reputed to have once betted with and lost a
sixpence to a lady--the wife of his trainer, in fact--to whom the coin
was in due time presented, set in a brooch, and surrounded with costly
gems.
It has often been observed, as a curious feature of the racing world,
that the horses of gentlemen who do not themselves bet become at times
more prominent in the turf market than the animals of those who bet
heavily themselves, either _in propriâ personâ_, or by the aid of a
commissioner! How comes that? It is probably because the owner does
not bet that the public, believing in his _bona fides_, and that
his horses will run on their merits, and independent of all betting
considerations, rush into the market, and by largely supporting them,
bring them to what is called a short price. Still the horses of some
reputed non-bettors often figure in the quotations of the turf market
in a rather suspicious way, just as if they had been given over to
a clique of bookmakers to do with them whatever they pleased. That
most of the gentlemen who keep race-horses use them as instruments of
gambling, has been often made manifest to those who can read the signs
of the times. Instances of such being the case are daily thrust upon us.
It is somewhat difficult to make up an accurate account of the finance
incidental to horse-racing; but by way of providing means of argument
and illustration in that department of turf economy, we can take
stock--it can only, however, be done in a rough-and-ready way--of the
number and value of horses at present used in breeding and racing. The
cost of maintaining and running these animals may then be estimated,
and the interest on the money paid for them can be calculated, and the
figures then obtained will give the best idea that can be formulated of
the cost of the sport. Stakes run for and won can be subtracted, and
the balance exhibited will form profit or loss, as the case may be.
According to "Ruff's Guide to the Turf," the money won by horses
running under Newmarket rules, in 1889, amounted to £480,889 18s.,
and if for illustrative purposes the sum won by steeple-chasing and
hurdle-racing be set down at the modest amount of £20,000, we thus
obtain a grand total of half a million sterling. As a rule, the money
won in racing is that of the gentlemen whose horses run for it. With
the bright exception of Ascot, can a meeting be named that gives
twenty-five or thirty per cent. of its drawings to the men who supply
the horses? Who finds all, or, at all events, say seven-eighths of the
money for the leviathan stakes now becoming so marked a feature of the
racing of the period? The gentlemen, of course! As a matter of fact, it
may be said that a hundred or two hundred gentlemen place a large sum
of money in a pool, that one of their number may win it in a race which
tens of thousands of people pay money to see run. In plain language,
these gentlemen contribute say £10,000 to a particular race, in order
that speculators, who have formed a racecourse and erected a grand
stand and numerous refreshment bars, may make as much as the winner;
the rent of the racecourse and the wages of the _employés_ being
deducted, the profit derived from the venture must still be enormous,
and might as well find its way into the pockets of those who supply the
horses and the stakes.
"Owners," as is well known, provide in reality most of the so-called
"added money," while in the classic races, namely, the Two Thousand
Guineas, the Oaks, Derby, and St. Leger, it is simply their own money
which the patrons of these stakes run for. In such contests as the
Derby and St. Leger, as many as one hundred and eighty or two hundred
horses may be entered. As only one animal can win, the owner of the
horse which accomplishes the feat is paid by the gentlemen whose
horses prove unsuccessful; and were it not that so much gambling can
be accomplished by making the matter dependent on a race between a
few horses, the persons interested might, as has been said, toss up a
copper to determine the result! Of the horses entered as yearlings for
the classic events, how many will be found at the starting-post on the
day of the race? Probably nine or ten on the average, or, at the most,
fourteen.
Yearlings? These baby horses often turn out dire failures! An animal
costing £2,000 may never win a race! One or two horses, which cost
large sums of money, are at this moment probably travelling the country
as "sires" at merely nominal fees. On the other hand, a horse which
proves successful on the turf attains greater value with each new
success it achieves, and at length, like Doncaster and Springfield, it
may come to be "worth its weight in gold." "Yearlings" said the late
Mr. Merry when he purchased All Heart and No Peel, afterwards known as
Doncaster, "are a fearful lottery." He was right in saying so, although
at the time he was drawing a prize and didn't know it--he was, in fact,
for a sum of 950 gs., purchasing the Derby winner of 1873.
The following anecdote related in Parliament by Mr. Gerard Sturt is
apropos: In 1825, there was a little mare which belonged to a country
apothecary at Newcastle, and her vocation was to go up one street and
down, whilst pills and what not were being delivered; well, this little
mare of nominal value produced, in as many consecutive years, three of
the best animals of their periods, namely, Rubens, Selim, and Castrel.
The Deformed was purchased as a filly for £15 with her engagements in
four large stakes, all of which she won! She was afterwards sold to a
Captain Salt for 1,500 gs., was repurchased for a brood mare at 300 gs.
and sold again for 600 gs. to the Marquis of Waterford, at whose sale
she was purchased for Her Majesty's breeding stud.