256 THE ENGLISH TURF 



I am by no means advocating that running should be 

 made with every horse, and that the whole field should go 

 hammer and tongs from start to finish, but I maintain that 

 waiting has been much overdone in recent years, and that the 

 fallacy of it has been exploded by Sloan. The American 

 jockey has had an immense amount of practice with the 

 watch, and most certainly when he first came to this country, 

 in the autumn of 1897, he was a better judge of pace than 

 the average English jockey. I remember seeing Sloan ride 

 at Derby very shortly after his first arrival in this country. 

 He had the mount on Stonebow in the Chaddesden Stakes, 

 for which there were sixteen runners. Stonebow stood at 

 10 to I, Ardvourlie being a tremendous favourite, with 

 M. Cannon in the saddle. At the distance Ardvourlie came 

 out pulling double, and immediately afterwards Sloan came 

 with a tremendous rush. He did not quite get up, and was 

 in fact beaten a neck, but he gave Cannon such a shock that 

 the latter was still riding when he was ten lengths past the 

 post — a most unusual occurrence with this jockey, who had 

 clearly not judged the pace so well as Sloan. 



William FAnson, of Malton, was I believe almost the 

 first of the English trainers to recognise Sloan's worth, and 

 this was before Sloan had achieved any great measure of 

 success in this country. I'Anson had a horse named Bave- 

 law Castle, a very free goer and a hard puller, who had failed 

 once or twice owing to running himself out. When the 

 Malton trainer had formed his opinion about Sloan he put 

 him up on Bavelaw Castle at the Manchester November 

 Meeting of 1897. I'Anson explained the character of the 

 horse, but he never pulled an ounce with Sloan, nor did he 

 come more than a few yards in any of the several false starts 

 which preceded the race. At the finish he won cleverly by a 

 length and a half, but I'Anson, in spite of what Sloan told 

 him, was not satisfied that it was a well-run race. Two days 

 later Sloan rode Bavelaw Castle again over a rather longer 

 course, and this time the trainer told him to make the pace 

 hotter. This Sloan did so well that the Malton horse won 

 in a canter by any number of lengths, and the circumstance 

 suggests that Sloan is not only a good judge of pace, but is 



