20 The Life of Fred Archer 
always to do the right thing in the right way, he 
was greatly beloved in Cheltenham, and one of the 
founders of the prosperity of the Spa. On his way back to 
town after the races the Duke sometimes visited his friend 
Warren Hastings at Daylesford. Like George IV. and others 
of his family, the Duke of Gloucester was a good friend in 
adversity. 
In 1825, 40,000 people were on Cleeve Downs for the races, 
and Mr. S. H. Brooks says in his charming little book, " The 
Three Archers," that Claude Loraine and Mr. Lake's Cain 
won the principal stakes. Sir Willoughby Maycock, however, 
said : " Claude Loraine won the Gloucestershire Stakes at 
Cheltenham on July 20, 1825, and he was ridden by T. Howard. 
No record of Cain having won there in 1825. A horse of that 
name running in 1825 belonged to Mr. Yates. Cain did win 
the same race at Cheltenham on July 19, 1826, ridden by 
Spring." 
At this time William Trant and Howard Amull, Chifney, 
Robinson, and Buckle were celebrated jockeys. Trant died 
at Prestbury in 1825 from over-training. 
Neither William Archer I. nor his wife, a Winchcombe girl, 
had ever intended that William Archer 11. should be a jockey. 
Under these circumstances it was surely tempting Providence 
when the elder William taught his little boy of six to ride. 
The child never had any doubt as to his future calling. He 
meant to be a jockey. In after days his daughter Alice said 
of him : " My father used to say that he never had more than 
two days' schooling in his Hfe." But of course he did have 
more than that, though he and another Uttle boy used to start 
off and walk to every race meeting that was within any sort of 
a distance of Cheltenham, and someone would nearly always 
give them a lift one way or another. 
He had his first mount in a hurdle race at Elmstone Hard- 
wicke, near Cheltenham, at the age of nine, and rode in a way 
that the critics approved of. As he could not persuade hisparents 
