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MY OF COUPS NOW PAST Gilpin Expresses Opinion That Such Things Are Impossible Now. 4 Tvlegrapli, Telephone anil Elaborate System of Espionage at Itace Tracks flakes Hiding . a Horses Form Extremely Difficult. P. P. Gilpin, the noted English trainer, writing in the London "Weekly Dispatch, expresses the opinion that the so-called "betting coup" is practically unknown on the turf today. His article follows: No sphere of human activity presents more ups and downs than racing, and repeatedly we have illustrations of what a big part luck plays in the affairs of owners, trainers and backers. Verily it has been well said that fortune brings in many boats that are not steered. Some such reflection flashed through my mind when I saw Verdict win the Cambridgeshire. It was a great piece of good fortune for that fine and most popular sportsman Lord Coventry, a piece of good fortune I am sure that no one grudged him. In my opinion, and I suppose in the opinion of a great many others, the best horse uras second that day. Thats what I mean by racing luck. Lord Coventry won a big race and his trainer had the pleasure of training a big race winner owing to a circumstance over which they had no control. We have all had that sort of good fortune, just as we have experienced the reverse side of the picture. It is all in the game, and we have to take the. bad with the good as philosophically as we can, as all good sportsmen do. COUPS FOR 3TAXY TEAKS. One often notices on taking up a newspaper the tipsters advertisements, with the claims that they have tipped the winner of a big coup, but it always seems to me that these coups exist only in the fertile imagination of the tipsters. My deliberate opinion is that no such thing- as a coup worthy to be so designated has taken place for many years on the British turf. By a coup one understands the victory of a horse "which has been set aside for an important event and has been backed for a large sum of money at a long price, and the gradual shortening of the price owing to the "weight of metal" behind it as the day draws nigh for the race. It sometimes gets bruited about that a party connected with a certain horse has "won much money over its success, but in the great majority of cases, if you could sift the matter to the bottom, you would find that the actual gains were small in comparison with those with which rumor has credited the connections. Just to take a rough glance at a race picked at random the Cesarewitch. Bracket won that race in 1920, and I have reason to believe that she was much fancied to do so by her trainer, her owner, and, of course, a few others. A good deal of money was no doubt won when ! she beat thirty-one others on that occasion. But it was not what I would call a coup. 1 certainly was not behind the scenes and merely relate what I heard namely, that all concerned had "a gocd race." KOXHEAU AND 1VAB G KATE. Now, I rather think a coup was contemplated when Rondeau went down before "VVargrave in the 1904 Cesarewitch. At all events Rondeau had been much fancied and well backed for some time before the race, and I have reason to think her defeat was a blow to all concerned. At the same time, according to rumor, the winning of War-grave on that occasion was a matter of great moment to his owner, for there is little doubt that he was in great financial straits at the time. It was only by clever arrangement that the horse was allowed to run at all. My Information was that it had been attached by interested parties, and it was only on the representation of the owner that it was their best chance to get anything if the horse was allowed to run that he was permitted to fulfill his engagement. How much his owner made on that occasion I do not know, but one can easily suppose it was considerable. Turning to the Cambridgeshire of 1903, those behind Ilacklers Pride were credited with throwing in for a good stake as was Mr. Sullivan when he won the same race three years earlier with Berrill. But a bigger coup than either of these was brought off when Whikfields Pride won in 1S96, because as late as the Sunday before the race as much as a hundred to one or more was laid against him to a not inconsiderable sum. And. I know that both his owner and trainer scouted the idea of defeat, and the horse proved how right they were in their estimate of his capabilities by winning easily. To go back nearly twenty years before, in 1878, there is no question that Isonomy did bring off a coup. His owner knew that he was a good horse and preferred reserving him for the Cambridgeshire and trying to bring off a coup to running him in the Derby, which race, judging by subsequent form, he could not possibly have lost; for it was in that year that Mr. Crawfurds Sefton won the big race at Epsom, and he was a moderate horse. On the other hand, we know that Isonomy was a "clinker." That years was the first Derby I saw, and I was not at all impressed by Sefton. CKSAKEWITCH AND CAMBRIDGESHIRE. The Cesarewitch and the Cambridgeshire were the faces usually selected by those who projected a coup, because betting on them took place several months before the races were set for decision and in the early days, of course, before telephones were thought of and the telegraph was in its infancy and the training centers were not subjected to anything like the espionage that is now prevalent at every one of them, it was possible to preserve that secrecy without which it is quite impossible to do any good at all. Without question, secrecy is necessary for the successful accomplishment of a big coup and that is the reason why coups as they were understood in those days are now things of the past. One of the last of the "big things" to be triumphantly engineered by those who laid themselves out to win a lot of money on a certain race was when Don 1 Juan won the Cesarewitch. in 1S88, in which! race he carried the featherweight of eighty pounds. Don Juan was then a three-year- j old and emanated from that stable which had done great things before, a stable whose secrets were always jealously and most successfully guarded. He was owned by George Lambert, who had been the chief figure in other well-kept "gcod things." ! In 1874 the same stable attempted to bring off a big coup when Fred Swindell entered the gelding by Wamba .from Truth. The horse was backed to win an enormous stake by his owner, but the "good thing" was destined to become untied and was beaten by Lord Aylesburys Adventuriere. It was only just beaten and was ridden by Archer, who, though then but a tiny boy, had wasted hard to ride at three pounds overweight Two years later the same owner attempted to win tho Cesarewitch again with Woodlands, but again saw his horse relegated to second place by James Smiths Rosebery. The latter was a rod in pickle, for as a four-year-old he had only 103 pounds to carry and he won easily, earning a big stake for his owner. As showing how good a tiling this must have been, a fortnight later Rose-bery came out again and won the Cambridgeshire in a field of thirty-two runners, carrying fourteen pounds more upon his.back. Primrose Day was also a well-kept "good thing," which materialized in the Cesarewitch in 1889, when she, as a four-year-old, won carrying ninety-five pounds. She had only run once previously that year, and that in a six-furlong race at Stockbridge, when she was unplaced. In the previous year, as a three-year-old, she had competed on three different occasions, but she never attracted any attention from the judge. It was therefore quite impossible for any outside the stable to know what sort of an animal she was or what form she possessed. She ran again that Autumn in the Cambridgeshire and though she started favorite I have no knowledge whether she was expected by her connections to do any good in the race. I am inclined to think they did not fancy her in the same way as the public did and she did not finish any nearer than ninth. A COUP THIRTY-FOUR TEARS AGO. This, no doubt, was another of these coups for which Goaters stable was celebrated. It is a matter of thirty-four years ago. Now things are vastly changed, and I know that the difficulties of preserving the secret of an animals capabilities in the same way arc! almost insuperable. If a horse can crawl! up a gallop in these days or show anything approaching decent form it is immediately j I bandied about all over the country long be-j fore its connections even dream of running it. And I know that it is not unusual for j horses to be backed by the public on the j occasion of big races for which their con- j nections, when the time comes, consider they have no chance whatever. j I Horses are trained for certain big races like the classics always with the hope that j they may improve. I, of course, allude toj those that are well bred and good looking, ! and on such grounds are regarded as "pos- j I sible" horses. Months before the race for which they are being backed by the public1 it may be that their connections do not con- j ! sidcr them seriously, though they dare not ! j take the animals out of those races for fcarj 1 of accidents happening to other horses which they have engaged and also because horses frequently improve out of all knowledge once they feel the sun upon their backs and summer really begins to set in. For instance, one sees abnormal improvement take place between the time horses run in the Two Thousand Guineas and compete again in the Derby, a month or at most five weeks later. A USELESS EFFORT. I do not think it would be the smallest bit of use for anyone to put a horse by for the Cesarewitrh a year or more before, as they used to do on the occasions to which I have referred, because I am perfectly certain that the designs of those connected with it would be immediately anticipated and the qualifications of the animal grossly exaggerated by some employe of the stable who thought he knew something. Tipsters have a great deal to say on this subject, as have those who employ touts to worm out the secrets of every important stable in the country. A small stable which had not much of a following might possibly bring off such a coup. Several of them happily still enjoy a certain measure of peace, are let alone, and are to a great extent free from the touting and espionage which make the life of a trainer at a so-called "fashionable" establishment more of a burden to him than anything else. The Frenchmen, I think, won a lot of money when Plaisanterie won the Cesarewitch in 1885, and followed it up with the Cambridgeshire a couple of weeks later. In the Cesarewitch she carried 106 pounds and she put up an extra eighteen pounds in the sister race, and must have been a splendid ! mare. Our French friends are not at all afraid of putting down the money and backing their judgment when they have tho proper article, and they do not go away empty handed when they win any of our big races. In 1888 they won tho Cesarewitch with Tenebreuse and two years later the Cambridgeshire with Alit-cante, and on the whole they have enjoyed moro than their share of success in these two big handicaps.
