The Life of Fred Archer 167 
to publish this, for I don't think Webb ever pretends that he 
could rival Archer, and besides, he has given up riding. 
" Archer was not only a wonderful rider : he had a wonder- 
ful brain, and as he rode in a race he always knew what all 
the other jockeys and horses were doing and what they were 
capable of doing. Webb is not easy to get things out of. 
Peck has told me that you would get more out of Archer about 
a race in five minutes than you would out of Webb in a whole 
afternoon. 
" Archer was always scheming how to win. And he was a 
man who could win in a canter from a large field of horses 
where other jockeys would have lost. But when a man can 
do it it is a sight to see. Fordham was generally able to get 
the better of Archer on the Newmarket course ; he knew it 
like a book and all the ins and outs of it. Archer would look 
round, and there was Fordham, who was too clever for him. 
Whether or not Archer or Fordham was the better jockey, 
Fordham was the one one would prefer to have on a horse 
if one wanted him to win races later on. Archer was very 
handy with whip and spur, and often a horse he won a hard 
race on never did any more racing afterwards. If any amount 
of flogging would help him to win, Archer would be very un- 
merciful to his horse. 
" Archer, of course, kept ahead of all the other jockeys for 
thirteen years. The nearest approach to his record has been, 
I think, Morny Cannon's, who could be riding now, and suc- 
cessfully, if he had chosen to take to the American style of 
riding and to march with the times. But he never really cared 
about riding. Although he was so brilliant, his heart was not in 
it. He would far rather go out boating any day, or watch a 
cricket match, than ride." 
Bend Or beat Robert the Devil again in 1881 in 
the Epsom Gold Cup, and Archer was always of the opinion 
that the former was a better horse. In the discussion on the 
Derby a friend said to him : "I feel sure that Rossiter ought 
