CHAPTER VI 



THE WASTING OF JOCKEYS 



As a rule, jockeys increase in weight when they are not at 

 work, but with medicine and hard labour they can usually 

 pull ofif a lot of flesh in a very short time. In an emer- 

 gency more than one has been known to reduce himself 

 7 lbs. in 24 hours ; and in four hours Nat Flatman is 

 credited with getting rid of 4J lbs. when he had to ride 

 Vulcan. The old generation of jockeys seems to have 

 been a stronger and hardier breed than those of the present 

 day ; and for some of the weights in the great races the 

 wasting process was very severe. It was a piteous spectacle 

 to see Sam Chiffney stepping out with his lop-ears down 

 and a grim visage, the perspiration coming out of every 

 pore as he tore along the Dullingham Road, in order to 

 boil himself down to 8 st. 2 lb. for an Ascot Cup mount. 



In their remote country quarters jockeys had little else 

 to think of than reducing their weights, in order, as Sidney 

 Smith remarked, to be in a condition " to take off their 

 flesh and sit down in their bones." Jacques, I think, put 

 himself through the process more severely than most 

 jockeys ; for, after leaving off" riding for many years and 

 growing corpulent as a licensed victualler, he resumed the 

 sweaters and wasted down to 7 st. 3 lbs. in order to don the 

 white and blue for his old master Colonel Craddock, when 

 Sim Templeman could not ride the weight; Stephenson 

 and Dockeray were specially difficult to deal with, and 

 they took lots of time to get fit, until at last they were 

 obliged to leave the saddle. 



Tiny Wells, in 1853, fainted on Malton race-course when 

 getting down to 5 st. 5 lbs. ; while Job Marsden, who, like 

 Bill Scott, always would have the rails, after not declaring 



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