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IN A SPORTING AND j DRAMATIC CAREER Alfred E. Watson, an English racing critic of experience and judgment, writes of the American riders, Sloan and Simms: j It is in the pages devoted to the thorough- i bred and racing that memories with the most vivid thrill are awakened by these reminiscences of Mr. Watsons. Those were really great days when James R. Keene won the Cesarewitch sxid Cambridgeshire with Foxhall and when Sloan and Simms and other great American jockeys astonished English j racegoers with the "American seat." Wat- j son says flatly that Sloans style of "coming through," which "Tod" was credited with inventing, was really originated by Tom Cannon, the English jockey. Later in the volume, in describing "Racing in the Nineties," Watson says: "It was at the Craven meeting in 1895 that the American seat was first seen on an English race " course, although an idea seems to exist that it was introduced by Sloan, who did not arrive in England until the autumn of 1897. A "jockey named Simms, on the American-bred three-year-old called Eau Gal-lie, amused spectators by cantering to the post with his knees up by the horses withers and his hands holding the reins within a few inches of the animals mouth. He was not taken seriously either by spectators or by the other jockeys riding in the race. Jumping off with the lead, however, he held j his own to the finish and won comfortably." How long ago seems now all the stir resulting from the triumphant success of the American jockeys over the riding traditions of Archer and Cannon! In one sense nothing could be of less importance than a book of this general character, and yet in another it has this great merit While we are reading it we forget the war and its horrors and anxieties at least and feel blowing out of the caves of memory the sweet and exciting airs of youth.
