534 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Craven Meeting of 1878. Archer won the race by three lengths on Advance. 

 But after it was over " The Kid " said to Custance, with a wink, " You don't think 

 I was going to let Archer beat me by a neck the first time I rode, which he would 

 just have done." So Pardon was sent out again for the Bretby Plate, and loud was 

 the cheering Fordham got when he walked the winner back to weigh in. Another 

 match between him and Archer, who confessed afterwards that "he never could 

 understand what old Fordham was up to," was at Newmarket on Mr. Leopold 

 Rothschild's Brag against Reputation, a speedy horse whose one chance was to wait. 

 But George "kidded" Archer to such an extent that Fred, who had the worst of 



the weights, made too 

 much of his horse at 

 first, tired him, and was 

 beaten by a neck. 



Custance used to 

 think that Archer, 

 riding long, often got 

 up the horse's neck at 

 the finish, with a loose 

 rein, so that his mounts 

 frequently changed their 

 legs and shortened 

 stride ; whereas Ford- 

 ham, sitting back, and 

 driving his horse before 



him right up to the judge's box, never loosed its head, with the result that it 

 finished straight and very seldom changed its legs. Archer, on the other hand, was 

 the best man at starting ever seen, with iron nerves, and such an extraordinary 

 eye for seeing what was happening in a race that the sporting reporters always tried 

 to find out all about it from Fred as soon as they could get a chance. Archer 

 was born at Cheltenham in January, 1857, and was apprenticed as quite a small 

 boy to Matthew Dawson's stables, the first link of his famous connection with 

 Lord Falmouth's horses. No jockey who ever lived has ever taken so firm or 

 so widespreading a hold upon the popular affection, though he died before he was 

 thirty. In that comparatively brief period he actually rode the astonishing number 

 of 2,447 winners which included five Derbys Silvio, 1877; Bend Or, 1880; 



" Imptrieuse " by " Orlando " (1854). 



