HARD WORLD

NZ Truth, Issue 1147, 24 November 1927, Page 11

HARD WORLD

Get Licked — Then Look Out Quite a number of people imagine that a jockey's life is one long . holiday. Perhaps it • is, then, again, perhaps it isn't. TO those who come m close contact with horsemen it « is well-known they have anything but' the best of times. Business is business with them and, until the work m hand is completed, there is no-time for frivolity. All work and no play makes Jack ,a dull boy, but then that can be turned into all work and no play makes jack, or m other 'words, money. Such little items as wasting hard for days to ride a weight never enters into the. heads of the average ,racegoer. . That is a "pleasure" Mr. Punter does not have to indulge" m. Up early, riding work, schooling cranky horses over fences, tearing from one end to the other of the country week m and week out, are not worthy of notice by those who say It's a great life. '■"','■ Torn into small pieces on all sides when the favorite gets licked, and told that a sailor has nothing on him are commonplace compliments, handed out free gratis. These are just a few of the little incidents that form part of a rider's day. It's not work, oh no. v He just does it for fun — like the man who swings a pick for exercise. / . The fellow who penned: '.'lt's a hard world," said more m that sentence than some of those old-time philosophers who had books published.