The Life of Fred Archer 157 
started at 25 to i, but it was only Archer's wonderful jockey- 
ship that won the day. 
He knew that Valour could not really stay a mile and three- 
quarters, so he rode the race in twice, driving him for the best 
part of a mile, and then easing him. In the straight he brought 
him again for the second race, as it were, and just got up on the 
post. 
The late Mr. Nat Gould gave me leave to use what he had 
written about Archer, and said : "I shall probably be able to 
send you something about him ; the difficulty is to know where 
to stop." He wrote : 
" It was at Eagle Farm Racecourse, Brisbane, Queensland, 
at a meeting of the Queensland Turf Club, that I first heard of 
Fred Archer's lamented death. Bad news travels quickly, and 
the cable was not long in flashing the sad intelligence over those 
thousands of miles separating the Mother Country from 
Australia. It cast quite a gloom over the meeting, and it was 
with bated breath the question was asked : ' Have you heard 
of Fred Archer's death ? ' It was a high tribute to the great 
jockey's fame that his death should cause such a wide-spread 
feeling of sorrow in such a far-off part of the world as Brisbane. 
" In glancing over the late Sir John Astley's ' Fifty Years 
of my Life ' — I had already read it — I opened it at a page where 
he describes how Peter lost the Manchester Cup when Valour 
beat him. I remember the race well, and as it was not often 
that a long price about Archer could be obtained, the following 
incidents may not be uninteresting. At that time I was residing 
at Newark in Notts., and went into McGeorge's Hotel a day or 
two before the race. I was under the impression at the time 
that Archer would ride Peter in the Manchester Cup. The 
late Mr. Tom McGeorge — what racing man does not remember 
that prince of starters ? — was a great friend of Archer's, who 
occasionally stayed with him at his residence near Newark. 
Young James McGeorge was at the time a stripling, and I 
often met him there. Then the Manchester Cup cropped up, 
