520 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



the will to use them quickly, each of these are useless. The "American Invasion," 

 as it has been often called, has at least effected a vast amount of good in this 

 direction ; for it must be admitted that American methods, whether in riding or in 

 training, have done a great deal towards stirring up ancient traditions, and made 

 many men think more than they have ever done before. The trainer who once 

 contemptuously dismissed the "foreign devils" with a sneer has found out his 

 mistake. Our visitors may have gone too far, as so many pioneers inevitably do. 

 But the problems they have suggested can never be neglected again, as they have 

 been in the past, either by our trainers or our jockeys. 



To think that a jockey's business is over when he has sat on a horse from 



end to end of a race, 

 and has perhaps not been 

 incompetent enough to 

 prevent his mount from 

 winning, is to appreciate 

 very little of his real 

 task. Finer riding has 

 often been shown on the 

 slower horse which ran 

 into second place, and 

 nearly beat his faster 

 rival by sheer skill on 

 the part of his rider. 

 And a man who can tell 

 his trainer nothing of 



the events of the race, give no reasons either for his own success or for another's 

 failure, is of very little use as far as the future is concerned. Considering the 

 large amounts that may depend not only on the winning or losing of a single 

 race, but on the knowledge a jockey may acquire during that process, it is 

 hardly to be wondered at that a first-rate rider, who is scrupulously honest, and 

 also intelligently and accurately observant, is so rare that he can practically 

 command what price he likes. This means inevitably that far too much power 

 must now and then be placed in the hands of a man who is only too ready to 

 abuse it, and who is enabled to enjoy that opportunity from the possession of 

 certain rare, and accidental, physical characteristics unaccompanied by conscientious 



" Camarine" by " Juniper" (1828). 



