224 RACING. 



And here we may remark that the style in which Buckle 

 and his great contemporary, Sam Chifney, particularly shone 

 was in riding a waiting race. Like Frank Butler and Alfred 

 Day in a later generation, they both abhorred making running, 

 and in this respect both fell under the lash of that consummate 

 judge of racing, the late Mr. Thomas Thornhill of Riddlesworth. 

 * None of your lying off and winning in the last stride for me,' 

 would the owner of Euclid exclaim, with an oath which shook his 

 ponderous frame. ' Lie right in front from the first, and if your 

 horse has a fancy to make running, indulge him with the lead. 

 I'll warrant that he'll get home as well as any of the others.' 

 The Squire of Riddlesworth was of one mind in this respect 

 with Jacob, the stout blacksmith who for many years shod John 

 Scott's horses, and was in the habit of addressing a remonstrance 

 more forcible than polite to Frank Butler, when the latter was 

 tossed into the saddle to ride a Whitewall favourite. ' If I win 

 by the length of my arm, Jacob, won't that do as well,' inquired 

 the great jockey, ' as a couple of lengths ? ' ' Nay, lad, thy foin 

 finishes shorten a man's loif,' rejoined the blunt blacksmith, 

 in his racy Yorkshire dialect. ' What's t'use of having a nag 

 fit to roon if thee wonna mak' use on 'im ? ' 



It is well known that Robert Robson, ' The Emperor of 

 trainers,' had a great antipathy to jockeys who, in days long 

 anterior to railways, performed their journeys upon wheels. 

 For this reason Frank Buckle, who was for many years the first 

 jockey in Robson's stable, found it necessary to keep some 

 of the best hacks that ever, stepped. Although the winner 

 of the Derby five times, of the Oaks seven times, of the 

 St. Leger twice, and (in his own words) 'of all the good things 

 at Newmarket,' never had occasion to exhaust himself by hard 

 sweating, the life of a jockey between 1800 and 1830 was very 

 different from that of his successors between 1850 and 1880. 



If we compare (says William Day, in his ' Race-horse in Train- 

 ing ') the work done in old days by jockeys with what is done 

 to-day, we shall find how great are the extremes, and, it may be 

 added, how different the work done by stable-lads as well. It was 



