176 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



THE LAST OF THE CHIFNEYS. 



In an ag-e now passed away tlie name of Cliifney was 

 us universally associated with the Turf as that of Kemhle 

 with the Stag-e. The one was a family of jockeys as the 

 other was of actors. There was the Chifney rush, the 

 Chifney hit, the hand of a Chifne}^, and the Chifney 

 ])rinciple of riding a race. The art descended, as it so 

 rarely does, as an heritag-e from the father to the son, 

 and in forcible illustration of the Genius Genuine which 

 they alike possessed. But it was not as jockeys only 

 that the Chifney family were famous, for never, perhaps, 

 was there a better judg-e of a race or a race-horse — no one 

 with a keener or quicker appreciation of what an animal 

 could do than the quiet, almost retiring- brother, who 

 stood by, wliile Sam was electrif^'ing the world with one 

 of his brilliant finishes, and living- in every one's mouth 

 as the g-reat horseman of his time. Still, however, the 

 public could g'o a little below the surface, and it was as 

 ^' the Chifneys " that the brothers flourished in the very 

 hey-day of their success, after standing- so firmly by each 

 other from their early dawn, when their father taug-lit the 

 one how to ride, and the other to train. And how well 

 we remember them in their very zenith ! when the g-reat 

 treat of all that Midsummer holiday was a visit to Royal 

 Ascot, where we were left on the Stand in charge of old 



