THE WASTING OF JOCKEYS 65 



personal friends) from the Saturday morning until he had 

 ridden St Mirin on the following Tuesday afternoon ! 

 Every Turfman knows how, after a desperate race, St Mirin 

 was done on the post by Sailor Prince, to whom he was 

 giving three years in age and a stone in weight. 



Archer bore his defeat like a stoic, and when, on coming 

 out of the weighing-room, " Hotspur " of the Daily 

 Telegraph said to him sympathisingly, " Sorry you were 

 beaten, Fred," Archer, without so much as a muscle on 

 his face moving, replied quietly, " So am I." And the 

 stoicism was the more credible because he stood to win a 

 fortune on St Mirin. " I had," he told the friend I have 

 already mentioned, "^7000 of my own money on; much 

 more than I ever had or ever shall have on a horse again, 

 and if it had not been for Melton I should have won it to 

 a certainty. I thought he was going home by himself 

 at the red post, and I was bound to go after him ; but 

 I had no sooner got to his girths than he stopped as if shot. 

 Of course, I dared not pull my horse about, and so in 

 reality I was making running for Sailor Prince, giving him 

 three years and a stone over the most severe course in 

 England." 



Melton was ridden by Tom Cannon, and, up to the point 

 at which he suddenly collapsed, seemed to have the race at 

 his mercy. " Melton wins ! Melton wins ! " was the shout 

 from hundreds of throats, and above the din came the roar 

 of one well-known stentorian voice, " Two hundreds to one 

 on Melton." But before the echo of that shout died away, 

 Melton, to the utter consternation of his backers, had shot 

 his bolt and was done for. 



All who are au courant with Turf affairs know that Captain 

 Machell at a certain period of his career owed much of his 

 success to the counsels of Fred Archer, with v/hom he was 

 on such intimate terms that one winter he made the great 

 jockey his travelling companion to Monte Carlo. 



The breaking off of this friendship came about in a curious 

 way ; it is another case of cherchez la femme, though not in 

 the usual sense of the proverb. Every racing man knows 

 what a pest a betting woman is, and how persistently she 

 will tout for a tip. When Archer was going to ride Queen 



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