RACING SLANG.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5201, 22 November 1877, Page 3

RACING SLANG.

(From Frazer's Magazine.) The language of the turf abounds in slang phrases, some of which are expressive. In accounting, five shillings are known in betting circles as a dollar • a pound is called a quid ; fivers and teners are respectively £5 and £lO notes, A pony is turf slang for £25 ; a century means, of course, a hundred ; while a monkey represents a sum of £SOO. The odds are represented by figures for or against the chances of the horse, and the principal turf market is in London, and is open daily at a large building in Wellington-street and at Tattersail’s. It is the big bookmakers who “set the market,” i.e., fix the rate of the odds, which at times are not at all commensurate to the chance of the horse. A stiff one is a dead ’un, or a horse which is in the cart; or, in other words, an animal which will not compete, but will be scratched (that is, struck out of the race) before the day appoiuted for its decision. Milking a horse means that bookmakers are laying the odds against a stiff one. Skinning the lamb denotes that tho bookmakers have a clear book as regards the winner ; in other words, have not betted against it, and have, therefore, nothing to pay. The origin of the phrase is not given in the slang dictionary, and the writer has not been able to trace it. One of the most expressive phrases in the vocabulary of the turf is hedging. “No bet is good till it is well hedged to,” is a well-known turf maxim. The following is an explanation of hedging 1 Suppose that a betting man backs a particular horse for the Cesarewitch at one hundred to one before the entries are due for that race, and that the horse is entered, is favorably weighted, and accepts, it is pretty certain to come to shorter odds than it was backed for. After its owner has accepted, it may be assumed that the price will not be more than fifty to one, which tire maker of the bet will lav to some person, so that he may himself stand in a position to win £SO to nothing. That is hedging. If the horse becomes a good favorite as tho time for the decision of the race draws nigh, and attains the price of, say, ten to one, then the betting man may lay off, or hedge £25 more of his hundred at that price, in which case lie is said to stand on velvet; in other words, whether the horse should win or not, he will win; he will win £25 if the horse is successful, and if not, he will win fifty shillings, and so be able to back some other animal to that amount. There are persons on the turf who make money by the process of hedging. They never stand to be shot at, hot iuvariably begin to hedge with all their might as soon as there occurs an opportunity. The eventualities of the turf are very great, and a horse that is the leading favorite at breakfast time may be struck out of the race bef re dinner, or have gone back in the betting to the hopeless odds at which it was first backed ; hence the maxim which all knowing turfmen keep before them, no bet is good till it is well hedged to.