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Here and There on the Turf The Road to Riding Fame. Few First Class Jockeys. Exaggerated Rewards. Natural Ability Needed. Almost every day in the year Daily Racing Form receives one or more letters from young men who ask information as to what the must do to bscome jockeys. The exploits of young Ivan Parke have given added impetus to this epidemic of correspondence. Becoming a jockey is not so easy as some of these letter writers seem to imagine. There are hundreds of men now long past their prime in this country who have held similar ambitions. Many of them attached themselves to stables in their youth, performed the many menial tasks which fell to the lot of the stable boy and yet went through the ears without obtaining a single opportunity to ride a horse in a race. Others, now far beyond the age and weight at which the rider is able to ply his trade, are exercising horses in the morning with no prospects that they will ever have an opportunity to advance beyond this stage. These men are hardened and disappointed because their early ambitions were never realized. Young Ivan Parke, lucky and posssssing unusual ability, won his way to the top of the jockey list in his first year of riding. Similar feats have been performed by" riders in the past and may be performed by riders in the future, but of the hundreds of boys attached to the various stables of the country not more than an extremely small percentage will ever have an opportunity to ride in an actual race. The life of a stable boy is not a bed of roses by any means, and every one of these youngsters who hopes to become a jockey must pass through that phase of development. Leaving his bed before daylight, cleaning out stalls, grooming horses and performing the many other laborious and often distasteful tasks that are a part of every stables routine, the boy attached to the average thoroughbred establishment is not likely to find his task either easy or pleasant. The boy who is able to stand the hard lif 3 of this early period .of training may or may not advance to the point where he will be allowed to ride horses at exercise. If he does advance to this point he may or may not be given the further opportunity of showing his mettle in actual racing. In any case the chances are against him. In nine cases out of ten the boy will become discouraged when he docs not advance as quickly as he had hoped and either abandons the attempt to become a jockey or allows his interest in the work at hand to lapse until he throws away whatever chance remains for him to realize his ambitions. Of course, the rewards that are his if he does succeed in developing himself into a first-class rider are well worth all the effort which he may have expended, but it must be remembered that the really first-class jockeys are extremely few and the second raters for the most part can do little better than malce a living. Increasing weight is a constant menace and the necessity of reducing from time to time is often the means of ruining a riders health. Many other lines of endeavor hold more promise of success than race riding for the average young man in search of a vocation. Once he has won his way to a position of moderate importance in the business world he is not faced with the prospect of losing his means of livelihood through expansion of the waistline. Big retaining fees and generous presents for stake victories are the lot of only a few riders at best. The general run of jockeys are not able to command an income that would attract any great number of men from other callings. But the publicity that attends the success of an individual rider appeals so strongly to the imagination of many a youngster that the facts of the case are obscured in their minds. The riders who are not collecting big retaining fees and generous presents do not obtain such publicity. It is assumed by those who do not know that all of the jockeys are enjoying enormous incomes, but in racing, as in all other lines of human endeavor, recompense is governed by the economic flow of supply and demand. There are always plenty of mediocre riders available. They can command no premiums and seldom obtain contracts. They must take their chances in obtaining mounts and often days will pass without their enjoying a single opportunity to ride. Their incomes depend upon their chances to perform and consHquently arc at best uncertain. Similar conditions in ordinary business would tend to keep men out of the affected vocation, but the glamor of racing lends to riding an altogether artificial attraction. Light weight is not enough to make a jockey, as many of Daily Racing Forms young correspondents seem to think. To succe:d as a rider a man needs a wealth of experience with horses, as well as many inherent faculties which arc extremely rare. A boy may acquire the ability to have his mount away from the barrier quickly.. He, .may learn by experience the pure.y mechanical functions of a jockey. But there are many things about race riding which he can never learn they must be born in him if he is to be a great jockey. A-first class rider can take a horse out on the track and send him a distance within a fraction of a second of a given time. It is such ability as this that makes a rider a good judge of pace such a jockey will not make the mistake of sending his mount along at a killing pace ?n the early part of a race. A great rider is one who combines all of the mechanical efficiency which can be acquired with all of the natural horsemanship which can endow a jockey. Such combinations are rare. It was natural horsemanship just as much as the famous "monkey crouch" that made Tod Sloan famous. His judgment of pace and his ability to persuade a horse to do his best were more or less obscured in the public eye by the more obvious factor of his style, but the "monkey crouch" did not help riders who did not possess Sloans natural ability. Earl Sande possesses this natural horsemanship in a degree hardly exceeded by any rider now active. He has an uncanny ability to judge pace and a remarkable faculty for persuading his mounts to do their best. Many a close race has been decided by his nursing lac-tics on a tired horse and many a winning horse under his guidance would have been beaten under anothers handling. Sandes experience with horses began early in life and before he ever rede in a real race he knew how to ride. Without his natural ability all this experience could not have made him a great rider. The combination of experience and natural endow ments explains his success.
