JOCKEYS. 355 



noblemen and gentlemen occasionally don the 

 livery of the turf in order to ride at race 

 meetings, chiefly, however, in hunting and 

 steeple-chasing. They rarely display their talents 

 in what are called " flat races "; but many gentle- 

 men riders would make excellent professional 

 horsemen, although, it is said, a professional can 

 always give an amateur jockey a stone in the 

 weights. There is a tradition in Yorkshire of a 

 clever jockey who was a girl, but so far as we 

 can learn it is only a tradition. Buckle was a 

 successful and hard-working jockey; from 1783 

 to I S3 1 he was, indeed, the horseman of his day. 

 An instance of his power of work may be stated — 

 he would ride from his residence to Newmarket, 

 take part in a trial, and then come home the 

 same day to tea at six o'clock, the distance 

 covered being ninety-two miles, not counting the 

 riding he would accomplish on the course at the 

 capital of the turf. 



A great feat of jockeyship was that accom- 

 plished by Benjamin Smith, who rode and won 

 a race after having one of his legs broken in the 

 struggle. The rider of Caractacus, in a race at 

 Bath, was so unfortunate as to break his stirrup 

 leather, but he nevertheless defeated all his 

 opponents, and was so clever as to bring the 

 detached stirrup home with him, so that he was 

 able to scale the correct weiofht. A clever 

 horseman once upon a time won the St. Leger 

 after his horse had run into a ditch, and seemed 

 to have lost all chance of victory. George 

 Herring, a jockey of the olden time, achieved a 

 feat which is recorded amone the miscellanea of 

 the turt ; he was so fortunate as to win nineteen 



