76 The Life of Fred Archer 
think some of them are left now) put up round Heath House. 
He forgot that you can neither keep boys in nor out if they 
want to be elsewhere. I used to walk home with Fred, and 
help him over the fence ; he'd climb up the wire, rather 
helped than otherwise by it, and get in at his bedroom window. 
His old rooms are there now, just the same, on the right-hand 
side of Heath House. 
" I don't say Fred was the greatest jockey that ever lived. 
Perhaps I think so, and another man would think differently. 
Just as a lot of men think The Tetrarch the greatest horse that 
has ever run, and I think St. Simon has never been equalled. 
You can't compare the jockeys and horses of one generation 
with those of another, and say one is better or worse than 
another, because they have lived under such different con- 
ditions. Neither can you bring back all the men who fought 
with Tom Sayers and the rest, or all the old horses and jockeys 
that ran against the champions of old days, and thus you 
can't tell what they had to contend against. You can neither 
bring back the men nor their environment. Times change. 
" But the remarkable thing about Archer was the atten- 
tion he attracted. The King even may come down to New- 
market now, and less stir is made than when, for instance, 
Archer used to go to Manchester. I've seen the whole of the 
street blocked with carriages and people as far as you could 
see to watch for Archer as he came out of the Queen's Hotel 
and see him get into his cab and drive away. 
" Of course he came very much to the front in New- 
market. One thing he started was the Drag, which developed 
into the Newmarket Drag Hounds, and went on for many 
years after his death. It began in his getting a few of us to 
ride a sort of steeplechase across country, and anyone might 
be first who could. 
" Mrs. Archer, Fred's mother, was a fine-looking woman. 
Perhaps Fred was not altogether like her, but he wasn't a bit 
like WilHam Archer, who was a little, round sort of man. 
