A DAY WITH TOM CANNON. 259 



Tom Cannon has little difficulty in keeping 

 down to some 8 st. 7 lb., and can speedily get off 

 a pound or two if requisite. He has, I need 

 hardly say, a very great many more offers of 

 mounts than he cares to or can accept, and his 

 condemnation of the low handicap minimum, 

 against which his relative, William Day, protests 

 so forcibly and so unanswerably, is not in the 

 slightest degree influenced by personal con- 

 siderations. While recognizing the merit of 

 many boys, Tom Cannon does not hold a 

 favourable opinion of the average light-weight 

 jockey. 



'' That unfortunate whip loses such a lot of 

 races for the boys!" he says, "and more 

 especially on young horses. No one knows 

 what a number of two-year-olds are ruined by 

 the whip and the spurs boys are always using. 

 It's cruel, and besides it does no good at all. 

 See a two-year-old come out on the course, and 

 go down to the post, listening and looking about 

 him. He ran last week, and he was hided, and 

 he was out the day before yesterday, and here he 

 is once more, and he knows that he's got to run 

 and to be hided again. What's the con- 

 sequence ? He's too nervous to put out his full 

 powers ; and then w^hen he goes back to his 

 stable, timorous and trembling, he won't eat, 



