I.— A JOCKEY FAMILY 



To begin at the beginning — and there is 

 nothing like jumping off the mark with a nice 

 lead — I was born at the famous South Hatch 

 training stables, Epsom, in 1868. Riding, as 

 alleged, runs in families, and it certainly seems to 

 have been running very freely in mine for a long 

 time past. We have cultivated a fine natural 

 taste for jockey ship; we have taken to it as 

 ducks take to water, though for a different reason. 

 I cannot go back exactly to the remote period 

 when Nightingalls were not riding — they have 

 clung to the saddle in more senses than one, 

 just as though their fortune were bound up in 

 it — but my earliest record of their prowess in 

 that direction is a curious old whip, now in my 

 possession. It bears the following inscription : 

 " Thomas Nightingall, 1738." It is evidently a 

 presentation whip to a jockey for wimiing a race, 

 and naturally we prize it in the family. Such 

 treasures give a lustre that money cannot buy. 



