p to these abuses: they will exist, in spite of
legislation, as long as the double character of owner and better can be
united in the same person. If this person should not act in perfect good
faith, all restraining laws will be illusory, because the betting owner
has the cards in his own hands, and can withdraw a horse or make him run
at his pleasure, or even make him lose a race in case of need. If the
thing is managed with skill, it is almost impossible to discover the
deception. In 1877, at Deauville, the comte de Clermont-Tonnere and his
jockey, Goddart, were expelled from the turf because the latter had
"pulled" his horse in such a clumsy and unmistakable way that the
spectators could not fail to see it. This circumstance was without
precedent in France, and yet how often has the trick, which in this case
was exposed, been practised without any one being the wiser for it! It
ought to be added that the betters make one claim that is altogether
unreasonable, and that is--at least this is the only inference from
their talk--that when they have once "taken" a horse, as they call it,
in a race, the owner thereby loses a part of his proprietorship in the
animal, and is bound to share his rights of ownership with them. But one
cannot thus limit the rights of property, and as long as the owner does
not purposely lose a race, and does not deceive the handicapper as to
the real value of his horse for the purpose of getting a reduction of
weights, he can surely do as he pleases with his own. There will remain,
of course, the question of morality and of delicacy, of which each one
must be the judge for himself. M. Lupin, for example, and Lord Falmouth,
when they have two horses engaged for the same purse, always let these
take their chances, and do nothing to prevent the better horse from
being the winner, while the comte de Lagrange, as we have had occasion
to observe before, has acquired the reputation of winning, if he can,
with his worst animal, or at least with the one upon whose success the
public has least counted. This is what took place when he gained the
Grand Prix de Paris in 1877 with an outsider, St. Christophe, whilst
all the betters had calculated upon the victory of his other horse,
Verneuil. So the duke of Hamilton in 1878 at Goodwood, where one of his
horses was the favorite, declared just at the start that he meant to win
with another, and by his orders the favorite was pulled double at the
finish. The same y