BACKERS JOCKEYS, AND TRAINERS.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3774, 1 February 1881, Page 3

BACKERS JOCKEYS, AND TRAINERS.

(from the wobld.) " Considering how entirely dependent on the honesty and ability of jockeys are backers for their very rare and partial SHCcessrs, it is unreasonable and ungenerous: that they should so frequently decry -< the honesty and depreciate the talent of the brave little men who stick so steadily to business, and whose'integrity could hardly be handicapped, to lose against that of an Irish patriot.. Yet, to listen to the conversation oh a racecourse, one would suppose that the principal object of our leading jockeys was to lose every race for which they ride, and * that " how not to win" was the art most sedulously cultivated. - Let anyone who doubts this stroil down to the cords at the end of the Abingdon mild or as far as the T.Y.O. At Newmarket, while a race is being run ; and, should an outsider prove victorious, will he not then hear from the lips of.disappointed touts- and swellmobsmen how the 'jockey has" pulled the favourite's head off, and how the speaker is conscientiously willing to sacrifice his prospects of happiness in a future state, if he , could not himself have won by an adjective length on the profusely epitheted horse ?■- A.ty& when the spectator is suffi- • ciently«3£%Jtrated with the language of defeated Seyen Dials, let him return to the Bird-cage, or the dusty parade ground ,in front c^'tke Jockey Club stand, and listen to the gilded youths, as, serene and.ioiperturable though they are under vt^er/'process they, term "getting the they .confide to each other in a 'ma^teivof-'course'mßnner- una'lterablesconvictioirthet Tom^'j|rJil, George, Joe, or Harry was "not m'the. job," and it is ' not unfrequently -discovered that every. thing, bar, the actual winner, was " doing H barney." l - — 'xOf vCourtfe'. the backers of the second ..declare that he ought to have won in a canter though it is only fair to admit that his failute is as often attributable to bad . horieSlnsbjp as to fraud en the part of the jockey: " Let his head go." " Took up his whip too soon," "Never got his flail out at all," "A couple of side-

"finders would have landed him," —these are judgments freely and frequently pronounced by men who shudder at the sight of an empty saddle, on the performance of ' some artist who has just failed to squeeze home a tired pig, or to land first past the post a delicate mouthed coward, who, with' his head id the air, has been trying to cut it for the last quarter of a . Nor, Jwhen criticism is being' served -out, is, the trainer allowed to\stand behind the door: his horaes'are "as fat as bacon hogs," and "not half.wound up," or "as dry as a chip," a»4 '"a 8 sore as a boil ;" and .;befifdes this he is usually credited with -Being .the chief wire-puller and ring-leader ' in : a which is formidable according to the strength of his stable, and which, has for its object the immediate transfer,of the whole of his employers' money; from, their pockets to bis own, and the_ f l collaring '*^.of as much from the §eneraT public as they can, be persuaded, y flash trials and false reports, to invest on one of his reputed certainties. • _ The reason of all this outcry is not far to seek. Eew and far between are the men who know anything about the constitution and'conditioning of thorough-bred horses, and the number is still smaller of those who understand even the rudiments of the science of bringing horses together; and yet nearly everybody who goes-racing thinks he is, and bets as if he was, a pastmaster of the arts of training and handicapping. .It is. easier and more pleasant to call other people rogues and thieves than to acknowledge oneself to be a fool; and when the prodigal of the turf arises and~ goes unto his father, he not unnaturally prefera saying, "I have been robbed" to " I have sinned against common sense, and am no more worthy i to go about alone." There is a popular belief, possibly founded on fact, that the paternal purse strings are more readily relaxed to the victim of some deep laid and cunningly-devised plot than to the dupe' of his own folly and conceit. Yet^, to the present* writer one of the few consistently successful backers of horses once said, " There is no such thing as ill luck on th»'turf."—VyWhat!" we replied;,' Vis it not bad juck if. the horse., we-'have backed is "p^ulled or break's down ? " — "-Certainly i'not," answered the sage; "pulling a horse that has any sort of a chance is a far rarer occurrence in racing-

than people suppose, and under no cir.cumstknces are you justified in backing anythißf unless you know for a certainty that it is going to try; and if men are such idiots as to stand unsound horses, they may thank their own carelessness or ignorance instead of finding fault with their luck. When I lose, I call myself-a fool.;, and lam not more lenient.to others 1; than I am to myself." .. ■i"'i I