view raw text
JOCKKVS KE1 TAKING DOWN. Regarding jockeys and their too swollen pretensions the New York Journal correctly says: "It is too eariy yet to form an opinion as to the likelihood of Tod Sloan repeating his successes of the last two years during the entire season that he intends to put in in England, but it does not sound well that he has already had to find an apologist. Sloan has never lacked chroniclers and, on the stage or off the stage, no one was ever more advertised. That this has boen particularly advantageous to the American jockey is not probable. The glare of the lime-liglu is trying, to say the least of it, and discloses imperfections as well as beauties. Judging from the cabled remarks printed in a London paper, one would suppose that the fashionable jockey of today should be i allowed to pick and choose his mounts, even f , . . a , , | | from the stable to which he is under permanent engagement. This is a very new and startling theory, expounded thus in blunt fashion, though we seem to have been tending in that direction for some years. "If such an idea is really contemplated in all seriousness it will probably lead in the long run to jockeys once more finding their level and not attempting to run the turf to suit themselves and their "manager," as they have been trying to do of late. Owners will stand a certain amount of imposition, and have, indeed, been standing it during the last few seasons, but there must be a limit. The "manager," who aa rule has been clever enough to keep his name comparatively in the background, has been a most undesirable feature of a most undesirable system. Primarily his business has been to select for the star jockey mounts that cannot on form lose a race, and this, except on the ground that such a method of cinching spoils sport, can hardly be objected to. It is easy to see, however, that the system might very readily lead to results that would be not only undesirable, but absolutely dishonest. "As a matter of fact a jockey should want no apologist. It is all very well for a rider not to be too promiscuous in taking mounts, for under such circumstances as Sloans his mere vegue would create a market that unscrupulous bookmakers would be quick to avail them-salves of. Bat that a jockey, jast because he is in fashion, should e metaphorically allowed to paw a field over, like a woman at a bargain counter, and select exactly the horse he wants to ride is contrary to all the tenets of sport."
