4^ The Life of Fred Archer 
rider's teaching was distinctly of the rough-and-ready order, 
though none the less effective. Mr. Parker wrote : 
" I was engaged at the King's Arms at this time as house- 
boy. When Fred was about ten years old he had a great 
liking for riding, so by this time his father bought him a dun- 
coloured pony with a black stripe down its back. It stood 
about II hands in height, and was a very smart pony. 
Every opportunity Freddy was riding it. There was a garden 
at the King's Arms, where his father taught him to ride, and 
on one occasion his father and brother William had the pony 
on a rope, with Fred riding, lungeing it over a hurdle, when 
his father, in a very angry voice, shouted : ' Sit back, 
you ! ' After this he soon learnt to handle the pony him- 
self, and could ride her in good style on every possible 
occasion." 
Another man who remembers later instructions on Prest- 
bury Racecourse says : " Old Billy Archer threw bits of grass 
and turf at young Fred, and his language was something awful. 
I don't think Fred was ever afraid of the pony ! " 
On Sunday afternoons the three Archer boys used to go out 
birds-nesting with the house-boy, Henry Parker, who said 
Fred used to talk a good deal in those days, and was perhaps 
his favourite of the three. Parker said he once ran young 
William Archer down Prestbury Street for half -a-cr own. 
William Archer's coachman was named Wilcox, and his sister 
said that when Fred was ten years old, or even younger, he used 
to come up on Sunday mornings with Wilcox to his house on 
Bushcombe Hill, where the coachman would put up the hurdles 
and Fred would jump his pony over them. 
It was at Prestbury, when he was eight years old, that Fred 
Archer rode his first race, the occasion being some small local 
sports. His father, Mr. Raleigh said, rigged the boy out 
correctly in breeches and colours, with a little top-coat over 
them, and in these he walked about the village all day. In 
the late afternoon he rode a pony which had been matched 
