If Newmarket looms largely in this month’s budget it is not necessarily
because of any phenomenal success attained, for if any conclusion could
be formed upon the proceedings of the Craven and First Spring Meetings
it would be to the effect that things are by no means too flourishing.
We may take it that, _nolens volens_, the old conservative idea that the
public are not wanted at Newmarket, which I have heard expressed by
several of the old school of owners and habitués (also by officials) has
had to undergo some modification in recent years. No doubt, amongst the
Newmarket old-timers there are still some who would be prepared to put
their hands in their pockets and pay for the exclusiveness of their
hearts which is denied them. But that kind of person, nowadays, forms
but a small and still decreasing class; the majority are bred to get as
much as they can for as little as possible. Amongst such bargains the
entry to the Jockey Club enclosure holds a not unimportant position,
for, in return for a payment of £12, commutable into a payment of £5
down and ten shillings for each day’s attendance, one is entitled to
twenty-nine days’ racing. What a bargain this is we realise when we
consider that the visitor to Tattersall’s who attended on each day’s
racing for a season, as members do, would be mulcted in the sum of £29,
not counting an extra ten shillings for the paddock on certain days,
which those in the Jockey Club do not pay. I am quite prepared to hear
that some would gladly pay double the £12 demanded if they could once
more have the place to themselves; but the process of popularisation, if
that be the correct expression, has already been long in progress.
Whatever may once have been the case, and however the public, judging
from the only available data, may have been induced to think the
contrary, the Jockey Club, regarded as a purveyor of racing, is by no
means indifferent to its patronage. Indications, mere straws blown by
the prevailing wind though they be, are not lacking of a desire to
ameliorate the public lot, and it has even been realised at last that
visitors to Tattersall’s are civilised enough to appreciate the
provision of something else to sit upon than the hard and dirty beams of
which the stand is constructed. Half a dozen garden chairs have created
a departure from Newmarket traditions that might well make some of the
old stagers wonder whether they dreamt; and it is not necessary to dwell
upon the fact that the seats fulfil another purpose than that of
affording seating accommodation by interfering with the operation of
“runners” who dash about the rings in a manner discomposing to others
anxious to take things more quietly. There are those who insist that the
convenience of the public was far from being the sole consideration in
pulling down the Old Cambridgeshire stand. There were even a few leather
cushions on Tattersall’s stand for the use of the public.
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