224 THE ENGLISH TURF 



debarred from taking the law into his own hands in the 

 shape of a stick, so tact has to be the weapon employed. 

 But for the fortunate fact that lads take a real interest 

 in their charges and aim at a spirit of emulation among 

 themselves, the management of a training stable would be 

 a still more serious affair than it is. 



Marching in line with the trainer comes the jockey, whose 

 life is indeed a different one from that of his predecessor of 

 half a century ago. The exigencies of the times have made 

 it so, and there is no reason to suppose that the jockey of 

 to-day rides any the worse because he often lives in elegant 

 rooms and nearly always wears fine clothes. The jockey of 

 the first half of the century, who walked the horse he was 

 to ride many a long mile from meeting to meeting, did so 

 because there was no alternative, and because the need for 

 doing otherwise had not arisen. Time was when the process 

 of "vanning" was regarded as effeminate luxury because 

 it was an innovation suggesting ease. The jockey who 

 walked thereby kept himself in condition, but it is not on 

 record that he was a healthier person than his representative 

 of to-day living under an improved system of hygiene, or, 

 by reason of his mode of life, a better jockey. Before 

 everything the jockey must have health, which implies a 

 sensible mode of life, and to our jockeys, as a body, 

 must be accorded the merit of leading abstemious, judicious 

 lives. When the borderline of reason is overstepped the 

 fact is at once made apparent by results ; and if the career 

 of the successful jockey is one to be envied for the pecuniary 

 reward attached to it, nothing is likely to be more swift 

 and certain than the downfall of one who fails through 

 transgressions of his own. One irrepressible feature that 

 has impressed itself upon owners and trainers ever since 

 racing became a widely-practised sport has been the extreme 

 difficulty of obtaining good jockeys. Mate this mare with 

 that stallion, and the chances are that a racing foal will be 

 the result. Anyhow, it happens so often enough to make 

 people persevere in the experiment. But there is no such 

 royal road to producing jockeys. The difference is that the 

 racehorse need not have any brains ; the jockey must, if he 



