MAJOR WILLIAM TROCKE 



To have ridden in public, with more or less continuous success, 

 for forty consecutive years without a break, is not an everyday 

 occurrence, and when, in addition, the jockey happens to be an 

 Irishman bred and born, and the majority of his victories 

 won in the land which claims him as a son, small wonder that 

 the name of Major William Trocke is one to conjure with, not 

 only amongst his own countrymen — perhaps the most horse- 

 loving people in the world — but on our side of the Channel as 

 well — wherever sportsmen most do congregate, in fact. 



The son of the late Rev. William Trocke of Mount 

 Ormond, Co. Tipperary, himself a noted hard rider to hounds 

 in his undergraduate days, and a crack shot, the subject of our 

 chapter first saw the light in 1839, and, taking kindly to sport 

 from the very beginning, soon began to show that marked 

 ability in the saddle which was to bring him into such pro- 

 minence in after years. 



With these introductory remarks we will now leave Major 

 Trocke to take up the running on his own account. 



" I received my first lessons in steeplechase riding from 

 the G. O. M. of Irish chasing, the late John Hubert Moore, 

 father of Garrett Moore, who lived near us, and trained at 

 home. I rode in all his gallops and schools, and had a leg-up 

 in trials on such bygone celebrities as Seaman, Grizette, Noisy 

 Boy, The Rake, etc. I was promoted to sporting a silk jacket 

 in 1854, and in the following year won my first race on Jenny 

 Lind, a mare of my own, with which and Prince Ernest I won 

 a good many races in the next couple of years, as well as on 

 friends' horses, at country meetings. In 1858, I entered the 



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