THE TURF AND SOME REFLECTIONS 



in explicit terms that there was no warrant for 

 the defendant's accusations and that the plaintiff's 

 grievance was sufficiently met by an award of 

 contemptuous damages. But the by-products of 

 the case are perhaps deserving of passing notice. 

 Frequent references were made in the trial to 

 the suspension of jockeys for foul riding. It is 

 unfortunate that any offence committed by a 

 jockey in a race should be thus described. Racing 

 terminology is surely not so poor but that a dis- 

 tinction can be drawn between a breach of the 

 rules due to negligence, rashness or inability, and 

 one into which scienter or intention enters. The 

 majority of jockeys are little more than boys. 

 They are eager to win : but — according to authority 

 — to be eager is not a very bad vice at any age 

 under the critical forty. Je veux risquer le tout 

 pour le tout may be said to be a young jockey's 

 motto. In his anxiety to carry out the orders of 

 an exacting trainer he crosses another horse before 

 he is that distance clear of him which the rule 

 prescribes. He is properly convicted of an offence. 

 Again, a 6 st. jockey, riding a big and awkward 

 animal, finds himself unable to avoid interference 

 with another horse in the race. He too is rightly 

 condemned. But it certainly seems harsh to 

 stigmatize these offences by an epithet which is 

 ordinarily understood to import intentional wrong. 

 In the old articles of racing they were careful to 

 make this point of intention. Thus : " whosoever 

 doth stop or stay any of the horses that rideth 

 for this plate or prize and it appears to be willingly 

 done, he shall win no plate or prize." The Jockey 

 Club have recently been much engaged in reforming 



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