TOD SLOAN 



sort of kid it hurt me some when the papers made fun 

 of me. I should hke to have had a go for two or three 

 of those newspaper men, but I bided my time, without 

 much hope, however. I just kept my tongue between 

 my teeth and didn't talk so much then as I do now. 

 But those papers ! \Vlien " By " Holly signed me on 

 at the Bay District Track at San Francisco one race 

 writer said that Holly must have engaged me because 

 of the loud clothes I used to wear instead of for any 

 merit I had as a rider. 



It was the same old story. I tried and tried and 

 seemed to get worse. I was growing older too— al- 

 though I never grew up— and I really began to wonder 

 whether it was worth going on with, and in 1894 I 

 decided it wasn't. In thinking about what I should 

 do after determining to give up riding for ever, I made 

 up my mind that I'd go on the stage. I looked about 

 and actually had something in view. At that time, 

 however, I had an unknov/n friend who took a good 

 deal of interest in me. I found out about it afterwards. 

 It was he who told me to stop all the nonsense about 

 the stage and to go on trying to be a jockey. I shall 

 always be grateful to him. Charlie Hanlon and George 

 Rose really shaped my career. Hanlon made me 

 study horses, and I began to stand better with myself 

 and not to wake up in the middle of the night ^and 

 think I was already a hopeless failure. It wasn't in 

 the stableyard only and on the gallops that I tried to 

 find out all I could. As a matter of fact, I discovered 

 the " monkey-on-the-stick seat " quite by accident at 

 the Bay District Track. 



One day, when I and Hughie Penny, who was then 

 a successful jockey, were galloping our horses to the 

 post, my horse started to bolt, and in trying to pull him 

 up I got up out of the saddle and on to his neck. 



22 



