view raw text
i GILPIN ENGAGES ARCHIBALD Former American Jockey Goes to English Trainer Had Stirring Career in Europe. PARIS Frauce, September S. It was announced here that George Archibald, the American jockey, has been engaged to ride for the stable of Peter Purc.cll Gilpin in England next year. Archibald, the former American jockey who has been riding in Spain, has gone to Belgium, where foreign riders are allowed to take mounts on the strength of their native licenses. He was to have come to Paris to ride Nouvel An. but that would have necessitated a French riding license. It was not deemed advisable by French racing authorities to grant this because of the fear at least so it was officially expressed that there would be public demonstrations against him. The whole question centers around a mysterious incident of the war. One morning in 1917 two American jockeys, Archibald and Sunter, landed at San Sabastian. They escaped from Vienna a few hours before the United States declared war, and made their way to San Sabastian via Genoa and Bnrcelona. The rumor soon spread that they had arrived by submarine. There were plenty of other stories about the pair going the rounds iu Spain at the time. Sunter soon left for Italy, but Archibald remained in Spain and took a brilliant part in the splendid successes of Ukko and Nouvel An. In the course of the following year he had a violent nocturnal discussion with one of his comrades, a Madrid mule buyer. Detail? of this incident were revealed in a council of war at Washington after the armistice. And the result was that passports wero refused to Archibald from that time., He was a prisoner in the land of his exile. The most influential forces invoked in his behalf were, unsuccessful in obtaining a vise for him. There was more talk of the submarine by means of which he had carried on communication with his family during the war. To make a long story short, it was only after three years when the black list of the embassy had been destroyed, so they say, that the jockey Was finally allowed to leave Spain and visit others of the allied countries. But from what we know of this story, and from what we do not know, it is apparent that there might well be a basis for some sort of hostile demonstration in France. There was not the least murmur, however, at Ostend. where Archibald won the first six races in which he rode. He has made a conquest iu Belgium, and Belgium, it seems, has conquered him, for ho plans to go there to live next year.
