TOD SLOAN 



idea of such a fool thing preventing any fraud if fraud 

 was intended ! 



That reminds me of a certain trainer who in the 

 autumn of 1897 saw me walking about the paddock 

 at Lingfield instead of being in the jockeys' room. 

 He came up and said, " Aren't you going to ride ? I 

 want you to get up on one of mine." 



Now I knew he was a fellow who had written a news- 

 paper article a few days before in which he had said 

 that I should be penalised, that I ought in fact to 

 put up extra weight, because my " seat on a horse 

 was unfair." But he didn't know that I knew about 

 it. 



" Am I to carry a penalty," I asked him, " for 

 riding as I do ? " 



" No, of course not," he replied, affecting to laugh, 

 but looking rather foolish. 



" But didn't you write an article saying that my 

 seat was unfair ? " 



He answered that that was all newspaper stuff. 



" Did they pay you for the article ? " 



" No, they do all my business for me." 



" Then get them to ride your horse for you too." 



I told Jack Watts the story. I remember that he 

 never stopped laughing about it. By the way I shall 

 always think that Watts was the best English rider 

 of the old school I ever saw. I liked him very much, 

 really liked him. I don't say it because he was 

 hospitable to me. 



They used to think when I first arrived in England 

 that I was fogged with the English money, but I had 

 got used to it coming over in the Majestic. Before 

 that I had only seen it^ — bank-notes I mean^: — once. It 

 was when Charlie Mitchell was in America. I had just 

 met him and I was going out in a carriage to the old 



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