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MEMORIES OF DANNY MAHER Hon. George Lambton Writes of Great American Jockey. "Better Than Tod Sloan on His Best Day" He Had Many Friends and His Great-est Enemy "Was Himself. The Hon. George Lambton, one of the most noted trainers in England, pays a remarkable tribute to the American jockey, Danny Maher, once the idol of the British turf, in an article published in the London "Weekly Dispatch." His eulogy of the great rider and his recollections of some of the great horses of that time follow: Danny Maher first came over to England in 1900, quite late in the season. He brought with him a great reputation from America and quickly showed that it was not a false one. From the first I liked his manners and his riding. The following year he again came to this country and was first jockey to Blackwells stable. Sir James Miller being the chief patron. The first classic winner he rode was Sir James Aida in the One Thousand Guineas. She was rather a flighty sort of filly, and her jockey showed that combination of delicate handling and strength, which put him at the top of his profession as long as he was able to ride. Rickaby, than whom there was no better judge of riding, said he was better than Tod Sloan on his best day. SIR JAMES A LUCKY MAX. Sir James Miller, a young man in the army, was most ertraordinarily lucky on the turf, and at this moment he was just entering the years of his greatest successes without doubt they were largely due to his trainer, George Blackwell and his jockey. Never did two men work better together and they had the greatest confidence in each other. "When Danny took a fancy to a horse he wanted to be on his back every day if possible, and when a jockey does this it is wonderful how much he can improve a horse. I know that Danny, when he rode for me, made one or two quite ordinary horses into good ones, and I am sure that Blackwell could tell the same story. Of course, Sir James Millers best horse was Rock Sand, a bloodlike brown horse by Sainfoin and Roquebrune. From, his early days in training Rock Sand was the worst trotter I ever saw and did not move much better in his steady canters. Anyone who saw him hobbling along before he warmed up would have put him down as a hopeless screw. But when fully extended in a good gallop he was an excellent mover. He was only beaten once as a two-year-old and that was in the Middle Park Plate. Black-well, at that time, also trained for Sir Daniel Cooper, and he had the useful colt, Flotsam, in the race. I believe the two owners tossed P up for Mailers services and Sir Daniel won. Rock Sand was a moderate third, although ridden by a good jockey, Lane, and Danny squeezed Flotsam home by a head. Probably Rock Sand missed his old pilot, for this was not his true form, ajid he came out again for the Dcwhurst Plate to win in a canter with Maher up. There is no doubt in my mind that Rock Sand was a better horse than Flotsam, but Dan Cooper would never admit this. They met again as three-year-olds in the Two Thousand Guineas ; Danny was again up on Flotsam and Skeets Martin rode Rock Sand, who won cleverly by half a lenfth from Flotsam, on whom Danny rode a wonderful race. Zinfandels only defeat was in the Cesare-witch and that was perhaps his finest performance. Ridden by Morny Cannon, with 115 pounds on his three-year-old back, in heavy ground, he was just beaten by the aged horse. Grey Tick, carrying ninety-three pounds. But for Colonel McClamonts death Zinfandel and not Rock Sand would probably have been the hero of 1903. In the Coronation Cup, as a four-year-old, he beat both Sceptre and Rock Sand. For some reason or other he was a great failure at the stud, whereas Rock Sand was a great success. In thinking of these great horses I have strayed a long way from my own stable and Danny Maher, but at that time, owing to the epidemic of pink eye, my horses were useless and their doings of little interest. "When Rickaby retired I got Maher to ride for me whenever possible, and eventually he became Lord Derbys first jockey. Certainly in his day as a jockey and a horseman ho stands supreme in my opinion, and I think in that of every other man who then went racing. TRAISE FROM A RIVAL. I was talking to Frank "Wootton the other day, who became his great rival, and he thinks he was a marvel, especially on courses like Newmarket, York and Ascot. When he first came to England he rode in pronounced American fashion, but he told me that he "soon found out that this did not suit our race courses. He said it was all very well on American tracks, which were as level as a billiard table, but that on our courses, with their ups and downs and inequalities of ground, it was impossible to pet horses balanced again if once they changed their legs and rolled about. His seat was the perfect mixture of the old and the new style. His patience was wonderful, and nothing would induce him to ride a horse hard unless he had him going as he wanted. Sometimes this caused him to lie a long way out of his ground and occasionally it lost him a race, but this can be said of nearly all great jockeys. He was always a delicate man in a way, for even when I first knew him he was inclined to be consumptive, but this never prevented him from putting an extraordinary amount of devil and strength, into his finishes, although I have often seen him speechless from want of breath after one of these efforts. Naturally he was the popular idol of the public and everyone conspired to turn his head, but he always remained the same pleasant, well-mannered man whom I first knew. But there was one thing no one could B make him do, and that was to take the H care he ought to have done of his health. H He had many good friends and some very H bad ones. I think his greatest "friend was H "Skeets" Martin, but neither he nor anyone H else could keep Danny from burning the W candle at both ends, with the usual result, the end came too soon.
