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I I | I i AMERICAN .JOCKEYS ABROAD. For very many years past the way in which racehorses have been ridden has given great dissatisfaction to owners and responsible trailers, who have seen the work of months cast to the winds through the incompetence, indifference to instructions, or even worse, on the part of the jockey. Utterly lacking in originality, jockeys have followed one another like so many sheep, and up to a certain period every race from five furlongs upward was run on similar lines. Whatever the distance, and however keen each seemed to be to get off before any other.no sooner was a start effected than there commenced a wholesale pulling and hauling as though the fear existed that the horses could not survive to the end of the distance if let go. Distance races were robbed of their value because it was the rule to ignore any part save the last quarter of a mile or so. Jockeys were all waiting for that bugbear of English race riding, the artistic finish. To win by a short head with seven pounds in hand might not unreasonably be stated to be the aim and object of the English jockey. I Suddenly on the scene appeared Sloan, the American jockey. Being something quite different to what had been seen before in England he was very properly ridiculed. "Monkey on a stick" was the favorite description of his attitude on a horse. The simile may not be inapt, but the monkey began to win races with extraordinary frequency. His seat was absurd, because he could not control a horse, yet horses came straight through long distances for him. How could he use his whip in that position. He would fall off if he tried. Yet he snatched races in the last few strides, whip or no whip. When, at Newmarket, he won five races off the reel, we were told his mounts were picked for him. Perhaps they were by that time, and with most excellent reason. Trainers had become tired of intrusting picked mounts to jockeys who threw away a certainty through the overpowering attraction of the "artistic finish," or from a contemptible ignorance of the pace. In Sloan they found a jockey who did not nullify the value of a good start by immediately pulling his mount back to the others, but let it go smoothly on ; who. if told that the horse he wasbe:triding had been trained to encompass a mile and a half at its best pace, did not cover the first mile at a canter and so make a four furlong race of it, but raced all the way. By these simple tactic6, fortified, no doubt by a fine knowledge of pace, he -et at naught the suggestion of picked mounts by winning easily, time after time, on animals that could make no kind of show with an English jockey up. It is now recognized that nothing could have been more favorable to tlie best interests of the turf than the advent of Sloan and the coming to England of his now considerable following. The character of our races has been completely altered, for when an American jockey is up it is an unusual thing for the race not to be run true. Into the public the American jockeys have instilled the greatest confidence, for, with their own eyes, they can see them on every occasion trying to get "first past the stick." The frequency with which they do this has become extraordinary. At Ascot we saw them win seventeen races out of twenty-eight, leaving only eleven to .he divided among their numerous English rivals, and a few da 6 later the three Americans who were riding at Gatwick on the first day won everj race on the card between them. Some reasons for this success have been suggested, but there are others. The peculiar seat, ridicu- lous as it appears to English eyes, is a very I important factor. Tlie forward position of the saddle is in obedience to the theory that, as a horses propelling powers come solely from behind, that portion should be left as free as possible. The crouching attitude is adopted out of deference to the theory of wind resistance, which is a board school matter. It is not the invention of Sloan or any other pale face jockey, but was adopted from the North American Indian. We have never seen it stated in print, so it may be interesting to learn that the way the crouching seat came to be adopted was after an instructive lesson received by an American stable at the instance of some Indians. These, riding the horses in the style beloved of the illustrators of Fenimore Cooper and kindred writers, brought about inexplicable results, for whichever horse one of them rode in a trial won, although previously proved to be a stone or so worse than those if defeated. Americans are admittedly more receptive than ourselves, bo, instead of indulging in sarcastic allusions to monkeys on sticks, they set about inquiring into the inwardness of things. The result is before us. In America the matter of wind pressure is intelligently taken into consideration. Here it is comprehended by a limited number. The majority would scoff at the American who went out into the open and presently said, "Theres a seven-pound wind blowing today." But why scoff . Speaking roughly, racehorses running short distances travel at a rate of thirty-five miles an hour. Call this a pressure of five pounds per square foot and it is at once demonstrable to the com monest intelligence that a jockey who presents one foot less surface of resistance than another has a five-pound advantage over him. This is why one hears the remark made that the American jockeys ride five pounds lighter than those of England.— London Field.
