401 



With the exception of Archer, Fordham won more races than any- 

 other jockey. They number two thousand five hundred and eighty- 

 seven. A wonderful record, even though his career was, with that of the 

 long dead Bill Scott and the present John Osborne, perhaps the longest 

 in history. But there were not as many races in his heyday as there 

 have been since. 



Strange to say, he never won a St. Leger, but, with that exception, 

 the foregoing table shows that he won every other race of importance, 

 and many of them several times. He won the Derby only once, and 

 that not until 1879, when he did so on Sir Bevys. Year after year he 

 tried, but never got nearer than second. Luck, notability, was against 

 him. 



From the list I have given is seen that he for some race or another 

 rode nearly every great horse that appeared during the years of his 

 jockeyship, which evidences the reliance which was continuously placed 

 in him by their owners and trainers. 



He rode a great deal for the Duke of Beaufort, the Rothschilds, Mr. 

 Parr, Mr. Ten Broeck, and Mr. W. Stirling Crawfurd, while Mat Dawson 

 considers him the best jockey he ever saw, not excepting Archer. 



His last win was on Brag for the Brighton Cup in 1883, and his last 

 appearance in the saddle was on Mr. Leopold de Kothschild's Aladdin at 

 Windsor in August, 1884. 



In Fordham we have an instance rarely met with. In about the 

 year 1873 he contracted an illness which laid him up till 1878, during 

 which time he did not ride, and lost nearly all his nerve. Once 

 a man loses that essential for riding, even when young, he seldom 

 regains it, but scarcely ever does so after he passes the meridian of 

 life. Fordham was an exception, for he returned to the racecourse 

 when forty years old with nerve as firm and spirit determined as ever. 

 In fact, some of his best races were ridden after his retirement. In 

 the first year, in slush and mud he won his only Derby on the roaring 

 ■Sir Bevys, and in 1881 on Thebais he won for Mr. Crawfurd both the 

 One Thousand and Oaks. 



His seat was by no means nice, but it was firm as a rock, and his 

 hands were perfection, while his skill as a jockey and judgment of 

 pace, whether riding a short or long race, and on either a good or 

 a bad mount, stamped him as a horseman surpassed by no one. 

 Archer was perhaps a better jockey over a course with turns and 

 inclines, but no one ever rode over Newmarket in the finished style of 

 Fordham. 



If he excelled in any detail of h's riding more than another, it was 

 in the extraordinary power he had of coming with a rush at the finish 

 and driving his horse home a winner. This art he acquired to quite 

 as great a degree as did Sam Chifney. 



Deducting the few years of his retirement, he was before the public 

 for fully thirty years, during which no man of his profession ever bore a 

 Jiigher character for honour and integrity. So great was the confidence 



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