DERB Y AND O TIIER JOCKE YS. 91 



argued, goes to business at the age of ten or eleven, 

 and obtains his food and as much money as will keep 

 him in clothes as long as he is an apprentice, at the 

 end of which period, if not before, he may obtain his 

 £500 or £5,000 a year as a rider in horse-raceS ! That 

 may be so, but the great prizes in jockeyland, it 

 must be kept in view, are just about the proportion 

 of Bishops to common clergy. Seventy-six jockeys 

 can be singled out as having competed one year, one of 

 the number only riding nine times. Supposing that 

 only 2,000 boys are engaged in the English racing- 

 stables, there are only a very few of them who can 

 have the chance of becoming a Loates or Barrett, and 

 earning the income of a Prime Minister. Some jockeys 

 who display ability, and obtain the chance of distin- 

 guishing themselves, unfortunately go rapidly to ' the 

 bad,' and become waifs of the turf; they get spoiled 

 by early successes, • flee to drink,' and in a very short 

 time are incapacitated for their 'vvork. 



Jockeys who desire to succeed in their business 

 must be of temperate habits, and comport themselves 

 as if they had old heads on their young shoulders. 

 Clever men as equestrians can at present be pointed 

 out who have to stand down because of their bad 

 conduct, and see riders, with, it may be, not a tithe of 

 their abihty, making their fortunes. There is no 

 calling of which its professors are exposed at so 

 early an age to such terrible temptations as that of 

 the jockey. It has been suggested, indeed, by a 

 public writer that the leading jockeys are not paid so 

 much for their skill as their honesty. It is not the 

 iirst time that a turf rider has been bribed. ' I am 



