view raw text
PERILS OF THE STEEPLECHASE RIDER No Such a Thing as Sure Jumper Many Peculiar Accidents Take Place In regard to steeplechase racing which I stated before was the most fascinating sport in the world says jockey Yourell prominent rider over the jumps for the past fifteen years it is almost impossible to jump off a horse while he is running If you have ever had the occasion to be on a jumper you know how it would feel The public is not aware of the fact that nine times out of ten when a horse falls hard and all the way down at a jump the boy is not in as much danger as it looks The force of him falling usually throws him away from tiie horse horseWhen When a horse stumbles or makes a bad landing it is almost impossible to stay on his back Then is where you are in great danger of being injured as he will pull you over his head and strike you with his front or back feet for he is unable to see you and is trying to recover his footing footingThere There is no such thing as a sure jumper During my career as a steeplechase rider I have never seen a horse which has never fallen as a jumper A horse by tin name of Lightout ran over the jumps for five years before meeting with a fall One day at Kenilworth Park N V with jockey George Archi ¬ bald in the saddle the horse fell and sustained a broken neck That was the only horse I ever saw that never finished a race without a rider any length of time There have been a great many pe ¬ culiar accidents in the steeplechase game and I have figured in a number of them themBAD BAD FALL AT OLD CITY PARK PARKIn In the year 190S at City Park New Orleans I had the mount on a horse named Peter Becker It was one of those dark rainy days and the course was muddy About ten horses faced the barrier and they all got off to a good start I took my mount to the front and kept there for altout a mile and a half when all of a sudden Peter Becker went down Apparently to those in the stand it looked like I was badly injured I lay still in the mud for some time until I thought all of the horses had passed me When I did get up I was knocked down by a horse which had trailed the field and one which the boy up had failed to take around me The jump where I fell was over on the back stretch and quite a walk from the stand I sat up and saw the men running over toward me with the stretcher so I rolled over in the mud A number of owners and trainers were watching the race from the paddock Pat Civill who was among the crowd exclaimed that he would wager a new hat that I would never ride a race again and Pat Dunne was the taker They were carrying me across the field and one of the boys assisting in carrying me was a darkey we called Mew Si ¬ mons He said to me Say Nick are you hurt And I answered sure So when we arrived at the paddock I jumped off the stretcher and thanked the boys for carrying me over When Mr Civill saw this lie exclaimed that jumping jockeys surely were not human humanSTEEPLECHASE STEEPLECHASE RIDERS SUPERSTITIOUS SUPERSTITIOUSSteeplechase Steeplechase jockeys are superstitious There is one man on the racetracks that the riders all despise to see around and he is C C Cook the photographer You can never see him when you are riding only when you fall he is there with a smile One day at New Orleans Bull Poy McKinney fell and there was Red as we called him on the job Usually after an accident the next day he will show you the picture and sell you one of the photos But you still have that feeling if he wasnt tltere you would not have fallen In other words Cook was what the steeplechase Ixtys called a jinx jinxNot Not every horse will make good through the field Yon start to school some which never take to the idea and have to be thrown out of training all together as timber topper prospects Once at Latonia there was a scarcity of jumpers and at the time for the closing of the entries there were only three carded to start As it was necessaiy for four to go I hustled around and found a man who had a smhll horse he wished to make a jumper of I asked a couple of boys to school this green jumper but they all had alibis Finally one of the jockeys who was riding what appeared to be the best horse in the race had the owner of the green horse enter his prospect Frenchy Garic had flu leg up Frenchy took the little horse to the front at flag fall causing the favorite to be put to a hard drive to beat him by a small margin at the end endGarie Garie only weighed 110 pounds and was oiuv of the best boxers in the country He boxed Johnny onion and all of the best boys out one year anil held his own with all of them He also made sev ¬ eral balloon ascensions and had the reputation of piloting more longshots in steeplechases than any boy that ever rode He had the mount on Percy Green which won a race in Kentucky before stee ¬ plechases were abandoned at Churchill Downs at the remunerative odds of 100 to 1 I have ridden on every course throughout the United States and Canada and consider the old City Park at New Or ¬ leans one of the best fields I ever rode over I also rode in hurdle races which differ from steeple ¬ chases in that small hurdles are placed at intervals around the main track
