Flat-Racing Explained

From the INTRODUCTION. In submitting this work to the sporting public, especially those so well recognized as taking an intelligent as well as a lively interest in the thoroughbred and his doings, I desire it will be understood that practical information, rather than literary production, has alone 'been aimed at. The work is not to be regarded in any sense as having exhausted the various subjects with which it deals. It is intended, in its inception, as merely the grounds work upon which it is hoped in the future to erect a literary edifice worthy the traditions of the greatest of our national pastimes. That a work of the kind was needed, to mark out more clearly the distinguishing features of racing, will, I think, be found to have been exemplified at every step that has been taken throughout the investigation of the various subjects treated upon. When it is indelibly realized that in racing, as in mathematics, deviation from a straight line proves the longer way round, perhaps the part scientific demonstration must yet play, to increase enlightenment, and make more effective ordinary "understanding," will not be overlooked. After some years of attentive study and very close observation I desire to express the gratification it was to me that many' results at which I had arrived should have met with confirmation by the 'timely act of Lord Durham in the famous speech he delivered on the occasion of the Gumcrack Club Meeting held at York in December last. Commenting, as I trust I may be permitted to do, on the subject of a speech containing, as it did, so much of the highest value and importance to the best interests of the turf, perhaps it will not be deemed out of place if I take the liberty of reminding his lordship that it was the extreme accuracy of the incidents and circumstances to which he referred, coupled with results most clearly defined in all that appeared, that led to the present work being published. When his lordship said, "It had been a year of mediocrity. They had had moderate horses, moderate rid- ing, moderate racing, and moderate handicapping," nothing better to the purpose could have been ex- pressed, and the pubic in general certainly owe a debt of gratitude to Lord Durham for having put those words on record. I must apologize that in the course of the work in some respects repetition became unavoidable. I have to thank several gentlemen for at times giving me access to notes containing points in racing results of undoubted interest and value- so important, indeed, in one or two respects that I regret I am not permitted to render my acknowledgments to them in name. They, too, like myself, prefer to be unknown rather than bask in the sunshine of publicity.