FEES OF OLD-TIME JOCKEYS 



tremendous interest to me. I have alluded to several. 

 For instance it was a matter of history to me that 

 nearly a century before I came on the scene public 

 subscriptions to successful jockeys had been raised, 

 one rider having received nearly one thousand pounds 

 from his admirers for having won the St Leger. There 

 seems to have been no difficulty at that time about a 

 jockey receiving presents from others outside the 

 owner of the winning horse he had ridden ! What 

 would have been thought to-day of a jockey having 

 to stand bare-headed and thank his owner for a present 

 of twenty pounds because he had won the Two 

 Thousand Guineas and One Thousand Guineas in one 

 week? This was what the celebrated John Day 

 received from the Duke of Grafton. Lord William 

 Beresford was my authority for this. However, 

 twenty pounds was rather a fine present in those days, 

 I suppose, for a successful jockey, if he were a married 

 man, received in addition to his usual wages a present 

 of a side of bacon, a bag of potatoes, half a cheese or a 

 barrel of home-brewed ale. Jockeys then were little 

 more than grooms. What a difference it is from 

 potatoes to gold watches, half a cheese to scarf-pins, 

 or a side of bacon to gold cigarette-cases with jewelled 

 initials. We used to read in America that the great 

 George Fordham was the first to ride successfully on 

 American horses. He had been engaged by Mr 

 Richard Ten Broeck, and from what one can hear did 

 extraordinary things on many moderate horses 

 belonging to that sportsman. 



Good jockeys came in plenty long before my period 

 of riding. Such men as Harry Griffin and Snapper 

 Garrison, also the coloured rider Willie Sims who was 

 five years older than me. Fred Taral was eight years 

 my senior. Then there were McLaughlin and Hay- 



287 



