JOCKEYS. 349 



travels from one race meeting to another in 

 a first-class carriage, very probably as the com- 

 panion of the nobleman or gentleman for whom 

 he is going to ride or has been riding. In 

 the winter season he " will to hounds," and 

 enjoy the pleasures of the chase on his own 

 thoroughbred ; or he " will to town," and indulge 

 in the theatre or the opera. When the world 

 was without railways, jockeys required to walk 

 their horses from one race meeting to another ; 

 and strings of these animals, accompanied by their 

 grooms, might during the race season be en- 

 countered proceeding leisurely along the high- 

 ways of the country at about the rate of sixteen 

 or twenty miles a day. A celebrated jockey 

 of his time records that his father, a trainer 

 and owner of race-horses in a small way of 

 business, sent him away while almost a child 

 to travel the country with a race-horse, to appear 

 at the different race meetings, enter his horse 

 for those stakes and matches he thought the 

 nag could win, and generally transact such 

 business as was incidental to the situation. 

 " With saddle strapped behind his dapper back " 

 he did as he was bid, and in time became a 

 jockey of renown, ultimately settling down as 

 a trainer himself, in which calling he attained 

 celebrity, training in his day several winners 

 of the Derby and St. Leger. 



Another feature of the past may be alluded 

 to. A hundred years ago, the trainers of the 

 race-horses were, as a general rule, the con- 

 fidential grooms of the gentlemen for whom 

 they acted. Now there are public trainers at 

 Newmarket and elsewhere, who make it their 



