The Life of Fred Archer 173 
a masterpiece of riding. That horse never galloped as he did 
that day, and probably never will again ; but Archer only hit 
him once and never spurred him. Lord Strathnairn would 
not win with anyone else. I have seen him often win when I 
felt sure no one else could have done so. 
" I cannot specify the particular races without looking 
over the Racing Calendar. I fancy Bend Or's Derby was as 
good a race as ever he rode. 
" One remark I lately read about him in a newspaper is a 
calumny. He was described as a most merciless rider. Now, 
he seldom hit a horse, and never rode with rowels to his spurs. 
The only horse I ever saw him punish severely was Whipper 
In, and he was an idle horse that would not go without it. 
" I do not remember when he first rode for me, but he won 
the Doncaster Cup and Great Yorkshire Stakes for me in 1881 
on Petronel, neither of which races he had ever won before. 
I am not sure whether he had ridden for me before he rode 
Petronel. He came out with my hounds in the February of 
1880 and asked me to let him ride Petronel in the Two Thousand, 
but I had asked Fordham, and he had promised if Mr. Crawfurd 
did not want him." 
" Fred Archer and I," said the late Mr. Joseph Davis, 
" were great friends since he was quite a boy at Mathew 
Dawson's. Added to the fact that he was a good natural 
rider, he was an attractive lad with gentle and attractive 
manners, and that went a long way in influencing owners of 
horses to employ him. He was nice-looking, with blue-grey 
eyes, though his rather prominent teeth spoilt his looks a 
little. He was always a great man with the ladies and 
especially a great favourite with the aristocratic ones, owing to 
his good manners. He always rode for me when he could ride 
the weight. I had a very good horse, Strathavon, a selling- 
plater who won many races. I bought him from Sir Daniel 
Cooper — he previously belonged to Christophers, the secretary 
of Tattersall's — and Archer first rode him for me in 1881. 
