When we bought our tickets we found, in the
familiarity with the event expected of us, that there was no one
to show us to our places; but by dint of asking we got to the
Grand Stand, and mounted to our seats, which, when we stood up
from them, commanded a wholly satisfactory prospect of the whole
field.
I do not know the dimensions of the Doncaster track, or how far
they exceed those of the Saratoga track. Possibly one does not do
its extent justice because there is no track at Doncaster: there
is nothing but a green turf, with a certain course railed off on
it. I hope the reader will be as much surprised as I was to
realize that the sport of horse-racing in England gets its name
of Turf from the fact that the races are run on the grass, and
not on the bare ground, as with us. We call the sport the Turf,
too, but that is because in this, as in so many other things, we
lack incentive and invention, and are fondly colonial and
imitative; we ought to call it the Dirt, for that is what it is
with us. As a spectacle, the racing lacks the definition in
England which our course gives, and when it began, I missed the
relief into which our track throws the bird-like sweep of the
horses as they skim the naked earth in the distance.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118