TOD SLOAN 



papers. One writer in the leading sporting paper said, 

 " Sloan is so valuable as a jockey that his absence 

 will be felt. That Sloan only followed the custom of 

 English jockeys in making the heavy bets which 

 formed one reason for his exclusion is apparent. With 

 those going to and fro from the race-course it came to 

 be a recognised thing that Sloan betted habitually, 

 and at times heavily. It would no doubt have been 

 difficult for a private person to have justified his 

 opinion by chapter and verse, but the Stewards of the 

 Jockey Club have means at their command for getting 

 at the truth of things ; in short they found that Sloan 

 has betted, also that he had accepted the offer of a large 

 present from Mr Frank Gardner in the event of his 

 winning the Cambridgeshire on Codoman ; and with 

 proof of these two offences before them they acted as 

 described. That many of our jockeys bet and not 

 always in half sovereigns there is reason for believing 

 and of all practices against the letter of the law this is 

 one which we can least afford to tolerate. It is not as 

 if a jockey always backed the horse he is riding, that 

 would imply an assurance that he would do his best to 

 win, but unfortunately the money is at times on some 

 other horse or against his own mounts, which is the 

 simplest form of making winning sure. Proof is not 

 always so easy as it appears to have been in Sloan's 

 case, and the firmness displayed by the Stewards will 

 engender caution." 



I can swear that I never bet on anything but my 

 own mounts. I did not make a parade of it for obvious 

 reasons but what I told the Stewards was absolutely 

 correct — that I did not think the rules of English 

 racing were against a jockey supporting anything he 

 rode himself. Neither did I attempt in any way to 

 deny what they said to me about Mr Frank Gardner. 



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