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AXI XI A JOCKEY CAH AH DO DOThat Doha That Sloan has good hands and is a judge of pice price has been exemplified more than once but possibly oae Soave of the secrets of his success which would at a pinch serve him well is the way in which he finishes Nothing can be more absurd than the invariable but utterly useless prac pac ¬ tice trice of swinging the hands round in a circle either from left to right or vice versa when finishing and we should extremely like to hear any jockey explain what possible advantage can arise from this gymnastic exercise If it means anything at all it is simply a superfine method f jobbing the horse in the month for it is quite certain that the circular motion can neither ease nor steady a horse nor add to his pace In a race of a mile or anything over it the majority of horses need restraining so that they should not run themselves out at the start and by restraining the horse the stride is shortened The only possible use of moving the hands at all at the finish is that instead of shortening the horses stride by contant constant pres Ypres ¬ sure on the reins he shall be allowed to ex iid id himself and to this end the hands should be moved backward and forward with the stride of the hoise hose so that while a firm hold shall be kept of his head ho shall not change his legs nor shall the rider check the horse in his stride Ever since the time when the Chit ney NE rush was invented we have read over and over again about brilliant finishes aid of the jockey absolutely lifting his horse past the post or doing all sorts of other wonderfnl wonderful things while the more he swung his arms about the more he was supposed to do for his horse Now it is quite certain that no jockey in the world can make a horse go faster than his best pace any more than can a man get into a bucket and lift himself by the handle The utmost it ap ¬ pears to us that the finest horseman in the world can accomplish is to do nothing which will in the least interfere with the horses stride or action and this is exactly what Sloan does With him there is no circular arm swinging he simply yields to the stride of his horse in the manner we have mentioned just above and sug slug ¬ gested gusted as the correct one many years ago long before either Sloan or Simms Sims came over here to ride The disposition of weight is not one that can be settled off hand and no useful purpose would be served by theorizing upon it + Of course everybody knows that the primary duty of the fore legs is to sustain the weight while the hind egs eggs have to act as propellers but possibly in this as in other matters the truth will be found midway between two extremes as there must be a limit to the distance for ¬ ward at which the weight should be carried Where that point is can only be ascertained after experiment though to obtain the very best results it would probably differ with each particular horse bestridden It appears to us that Sloan so far from adding to the mystery of race riding has really simplified it by showing that a good deal of the nonsense which has been talked or written about it has really no founda fonda ¬ tion ion in fact That it is an easy matter to ride a re fi no one for a moment supposes On the hand to incline to the idea that a boy wuo Iwo before the days of board schools could hardly read or write should directly he found himself in the saddle show himself possessed of all sorts of gifts is unreasonable Sloan has shown at any rate to a certain extent that sitting still avoiding all useless show and not waiting are at least valuable factors in race riding There is no reason to say that he has had absolutely picked mounts but at the same time tho thou American could not win on every horse be rode He was betupu getup by Loates Loathes at NbWrtiraket yesuiaay estuary vcck ck uor our could he on Tuesday at Nottingham succeed in taking either of his three mounts first past the post It may be that be has had an extraordinary run of luck or it may be that there is something in the system of riding which gives him an ad ¬ vantage There is one thing to be said viz vi that not one single word has ever been breathed as to any unfairness in his riding and that being the case he is entitled to full praise for his victories It would be equally unjust and ungenerous to deny him the full credit for what he has accomplished for it is not sportsman ¬ like to attempt to explain away a defeat but another week may tell an altogether different story and the horseman who has during his visit hero proved such a thorn in the side of our English jockeys may often have to ride a stern race Probably when the season is over the general idea will be that Sloan has not revolutionized race riding except so far as he has shown the advantage of sitting still and the uselessness of armflourishing at the finish The Field London England
