HISTORIC JOCKEYS AND A ROYAL OWNER. 



35' 



sometimes even at a walk has been abandoned. A race is fought out from start 

 to finish ; and the man who ventures nowadays to depend only on a run-in from 

 the distance and a neat victory by a head, will not often find himself justified in giving 

 so much indulgence to the pleasure of cutting it fine. But if the character of the 

 first part of a race has generally changed, the value of a determined finish has, if 

 anything, increased. Those who remember Fordham on Sabimts in the Cambridge- 

 shire, Archer on Melton in the Derby, Tom Cannon on Isonomv at Manchester, 

 Chaloner on Caller On in the St. Leger, or John Watts on Thais for the Thousand 

 Guineas, will not be likely to admit that these finishes were ever greatly surpassed 

 by any of their predecessors. For a more startling difference, both in methods 

 and in men, we should 

 have to go to the 

 trainers of our own 

 time. Between these 

 men and the majority 

 of the farriers who 

 dedicated their some- 

 what absurd volumes 

 to Sir John Lade or 

 "Tommy Onslow," 

 there is as much 

 difference in compre- 

 hension of the noble 

 animal as in upright- 

 ness and integrity ; 

 perceived, and no doubt .wished to emphasise, when he gave Fred Archer 

 ^500 for winning the Derby but bestowed double that amount on Robert Peck 

 who trained Bend Or. The formidable sums considered justifiable as presents 

 at the beginning of the twentieth century to a jockey already in receipt of 

 a larger income than a Cabinet Minister, are no more an indication of increased 

 excellence in riding than the huge fees now asked for stallions, or the inflated prices 

 for a fashionably bred yearling, are a guarantee that bloodstock has improved. 



A few of the famous jockeys of the eighteenth century have already been 

 mentioned, and their exploits were celebrated all over the country in their time, 

 though the chronicles are somewhat too silent as to their doings, save in such forms 



"Moll Tonson" and "Barefoot" at the Well Gap, Newmarket. 



a difference which the late Duke of Westminster 



