TOD SLOAN 



then, with the exception of one or two, were a joke — 

 as many Anglo-French trainers can vouch. On the 

 grey I just beat Dodd a head : he said he was kidding 

 me and could have won if he had liked. The truth was 

 that he really didn't think anything of me, as he has 

 told me since. At all events my horse had his head in 

 front at the end of the race, I had £200 for my ex- 

 penses in going over, and I always received this sum 

 when engaged on subsequent occasions. The £200 fee 

 could have been maintained at that, but a certain 

 American jockey with a successful record quite un- 

 necessarily cut it down to £50. I didn't want 

 to go anyway, even for £200 ; crossing the Channel 

 and so on and missing the Sunday rest took the 

 gilt off the gingerbread. Tilings are a great deal 

 more stringent in France now than they were sixteen 

 years ago, for I was never asked to show my licence 

 and I might, apart from my colour, have been Jack 

 Johnson instead of Tod Sloan. 



It was in Paris that I first formed the idea of the 

 negligent way horses were kept, about which I have 

 written in a previous chapter, but I liked the trip and 

 looked forward to others afterwards. The American 

 invasion had not begun in France but was getting in 

 full blast in England, and a good deal was being said 

 of the number of races won by certain jockeys and 

 trainers, and all sorts of statements made. The 

 number of bettors who came over was one of the worst 

 things for the riders, and it was natural that the in-and- 

 out career of some of the gamblers should rather 

 scandalise old-fashioned people in England. It was 

 not that the Americans knew any more how to wager 

 and make a good bargain with the bookmakers than 

 Englishmen did, but there were so many suggestions 

 that they stood in with the jockeys that things became 



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