view raw text
WHEN STEEPLECHASE JOCKEYS FALL. Some Advise That It Is Best to Lie Still. Others Say Make Away. "Steeplechase Jockey a must have many exciting inoiuiiiis iu their Urea," njra i writer in Frys M ■••j.-izine for April. "How would you iike your torse t« fall with you when yon are alatont at the head of your Held, and there ir* horses galore following immediate!., behlndl Would vi.ii lie where vou fell, or ""old yon try to roll to a place of aaietj : I hare aaked many Jockeys. Lie still, and no Imrse will jump On yea; lliey are as clever as cats,1 emphatically adrise sonae. Get out i f the light aa faat aa roa can, say Others. Aa a matter of tact, a jockey i- nsaalt: too daned at the instant to know |iiiie what he ought to do, ac what he ieea do. it is eertainly true thai ■ none, if to can [iiwllilj help it. will not tread on a fallen tone or man. and -oine of the methods they employ to avoid doing so when it seems inevitable prove a lightning brain ami electric riaoarcc. The com aaanesl thing they .h la to jump over the prostrate Forma, keeping their beela done to their aoaaea. A jochey tohl me that once a brother jockey fell immediately in front and hia own horae appeared to be in the act of landing on his chest, when to felt Ma mount, while in midair, make an additional spring, and be landed clear. Many jockeya have got kicked in their endeavors to rise. "V. Thy tar a account of how lie lay on the ground after John M. P.. had fallen with him in the Grand National at Liverpool last year. and. as it seemed to him. doyens on dozens, and scores and scores, and hundreds on hundreds of boraes passed over hi toad, was dramatic and illustrative: Their hoofs glistened and shone like snowballs. The bright Steel of the shoes swept over me like a storm. I nor any other kind Of am nof a steeplechase jockey, a jockev. but I have been in seetu! somewhat s.arefying runaways. My last was down a hill. I lie toffy turned completely over in a decline in the road and threw ine with my head within an inch of a stout tree. The horse turned sharp round and ,iw I lay there with the ruins of the buggy about me and the horse entangled in the mess trying to get away. 1 remember thinking Will this beast kftefc my brains out?" As Taylor says. I fancied I ■ oiibl see heels in all directions, but the frightened, fractious brute, finding he eouldnt get free, right about faced again, dashed through the trees, shook off the harness and remnants that were trammeling him. made a short circuit and gained the road to the stable, which laid south from w here the disaster occurred. Of course I was a bit unstrung with a dislocated shoulder, a broken ligament to a linger and a hole in my side, but everything that ]iasscci I recognized, including the horses hoofs that played over and around my head, as plainly as if 1 had been calmly and carelessly looking at a moving picture."