OLDEST JOCKEY DEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 4

OLDEST JOCKEY DEAD

EARLY RACING DAYS

John Faulkner,, the oldest jockey in the world, < died recently at his home at'Appleford, Berks (states the London "Daily Telegraph")... He would have been 105 on March 12.

Born in Islington, the son of a London mail-coach driver, Faulkner commenced his career at the age. of twelve as a (stable lad at Epsom, and soon after lie was apprenticed to Isaac Walcot, of Druids' Head, Salisbury Plain, one of the greatest trainers of the day. Judging from his tales, he led a hard life, for, apart from being well fed and <:lothed, : he rarely.-received■■anything for Ws services, which began at dawn and ended-at dark, and were full of responsibilities and risks. :

On one occasion during his apprenticeship, when he rode a horse into a place at1 Epsom, he received threepence as a reward— and . considered himself lucky! .Among th<! hundreds of races in which Faulkner rode were' the City and Suburban, the Great Metropolitan, and' the Ceearewi'tch: At the age of IS lie rode the .first winner of ■ the City Bowl at Salisbury, and incidentally,-, seventy-four years later, he -saw his' grandson gain the first place in ; the same 'race. In 1857 he rode Dusty Miller in the Ce'sarewitch, and just-missed a place when Fordham, the American joekev, won on Prioress after, a triple dead-heat.' The horse he remembered best, however, was Rip Van Winkle. It was owned by Palmer, the Rupeley poisoner, who was convicted in 1856 of the murder of his friend Cook and hanged at Stafford in the presence of 50,000 people. One of Faulkner's proudest memories was of the day when he bought a racehorse for 5s 6d, entered it at Abingdon steeplechases, and rode it into second place. He rode his last race in a steeplechase at Abingdon when he was seventyfour. ■ .

After retiring he settled down in Abinndon, where he lived happily for the rest of his days with his wife and one of liis 6011S. He married twice and had thirtytwo children; the eldest of whom is now over seventy and the. youngest thirty-one. Many, of them were successful as jockeys, trainers, and stablemen.

Faulkner never made a bet in his life. "I have never believed jn it," he once said. He was a bitter critic of the modern style of riding, and when he visited thn Ascot meeting in 1927 he was so disgusted by the crouching attitude of the'jockeys that he left after the first race. -