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CHAPTER XIV. 



HISTORIC JOCKEYS AND A ROYAL OWNER. 



" Take a pestle and mortar of moderate size : 

 Into Queensberry's head put Bunbury's eyes, 

 Pound Clermont to dust you'll find it expedient, 

 The world cannot furnish a better ingredient 

 From Derby and Bedford take plenty of spirit, 

 Successful or not, they have always that merit, 

 Tommy Panton's address, John Wastell's advice, 

 And a touch of Prometheus, 'tis done in a trice." 



[A Receipt to make a Jockey '.] 



T must have been obvious to the earliest supporters of the Turf that however good 

 they bred their horses they would never win a race or pocket a bet unless those 

 horses were well ridden ; and the ballad of Gatherley Moor, quoted in the Appendix, 

 will show that this great truth had been realised as early as the first quarter of the 

 seventeenth century. Even if the foundation of the Jockey Club had not drawn 

 attention to the importance of this question, the retirement of the Prince of Wales 

 must have very sharply emphasised some of its aspects, and I therefore take the name 

 of Chifney with which that retirement was connected as the starting-point for a 

 consideration of a few of those important details which are suggested by any list of 

 famous jockeys I do no't pretend to give anything like an exhaustive list of " these 

 little gentlemen of the pigskin " ; and I shall avoid, as far as possible, any particular 

 criticisms or appreciations of those whose work in the saddle my readers can observe 

 on any modern racecourse ; but it will be a convenient opportunity to gather together 

 here several notes on famous jockeys whose career would not otherwise be connected 

 with that period of Turf History at which we have chronologically arrived. Certain 

 comparisons and conclusions, inevitable in such a subject, will also be more 

 appropriately considered from the standpoint we are now taking, the beginning 



VOL. II. 3 A 



