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- I I I I I j fl I : I : ; . t j 3 3 a 3 ; r B t s e 1 c . - t - 10 J 5o f t w ? w t t J E. 3. e 1! ,t trssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiw c EnlA MrTiiXliSililfai ,UfffTll illrli iti i fl 2 2 llllljllilj III lM 0 iinnNmiwrw",,-nrn!i nullum ih mi nMiiii yi s a c j "Yesterday," writes in Edward Arlington, "you discussed the riders who have succeeded in winning the most races in their respective years. Did those riders, as a whole, in your opinion, class up with the good riders who never attained to the honor of heading the list for a season?" 1 In endeavoring to answer your query, Mr. Arlington, we shall give the opinions of many 1 experts with whom we have talked in the past thirty years or whose words we have read in racing journals, rather than our own. 1 We didnt have the fortune to see them all, ; east and west, at their best. Naturally, for every good rider that has I headed the list, there have been from -one to a dozen in the same season just as capable. In the eighties James McLaughlin, Isaac Murphy, "Snapper" Garrison, "Pike" Barnes, Billy Donohue or Harry Stroval generally headed the list. First-class riders, expert horsemen, who were contemporaneous with those jockeys were Harry Blaylock, John Spellman, "Daredevil" Fitzpatrick, Fatsy Duffy, Andy Mc-i Carthy, Tony Hamilton, William Hayward, George Covington, George Barbee and Eddie AVest. Veterans like Frank Patterson and George Wenrick undoubtedly could name you a dozen other first-class jockeys of the time who, for one reason and another, did not attain to lasting fame. Fred Taral, Henry Griffin, Monk Overton, Willie Simms and Lonnie Clayton were the leading winners of the early nineties. But AVillie Martin, who used to win about as many races a season as Clarence Kummer, was possibly as good a rider on certain days as ever pulled a whip on a horse. He was one of the greatest of "generals," master strategist, But Willie was harder to guess than Clar- ence Turner. Yet, he had that saving grace that, on a specific occasion he seldom, if ever, "broke ... ,, it up. We saw him ride a race at Ingleside, San Francisco, one afternoon that stands out : in our memory to this day. Astride The Roman, a horse of close to Little Chiefs 1923 cailbre, he lay in back of ; the pacemakers right to the sixteenth pole. . Just why he waited so long well never fathom. Unless it was that no one, includ-,jj ing AVillie, could tell until that moment which i of the pacemakers, Ostler Joe or Morellito, , might win. But at the paddock gate, a hundred yards 5 out, Ostler Joe was "gone." In a flash Martin lifted The Roman from behind Morellito, right over his very hocks, and sat down to ride him with hand, heels j and whip. Now you can count on the fingers of a 1 hand the horses that can be sent from a 1 snatch-up to the limit of their speed and 1 into the lead in less than a hundred yards unless a ton the best. And this was a han c 2 2 0 s a c j 1 1 1 ; I : ; . i , 5 j a 1 a 1 1 dicap and far from one-sided the favorite, to 1. Also you can count on the fingers of the other hand the jockeys capable of snapping horse into his stride that quickly. Dick Crowhurst, who used to ride for G. C. Bennett, was one of the few to master the art. But Martin got The Roman up that day to Avin by the thickness of this issue of DAILY RACING FORM. And The Roman didnt race again for five months. Sam Hildreth or Frank Farrar or James MacManus will recall the race intimately. Possibly the most famous of all riders and of course one of the very greatest in results of all time in this country, never came close to heading the list of winning jockeys. Tod Sloan. Tod, in the middle and late nineties, generally finished among the first six to ten. But there were "spots" in which he set winning records for other riders to shoot at. On his return to America from his first conquest of England, Tod came out to San Francisco and shortly after renewal of riding in America, he rode eighteen winners in one week of thirty-six races. Tod didnt have mounts in all of them. Our recollection is that he won that week, with sixty per cent, of his mounts. Other excellent riders of that period, who never quite succeeded in winning the coveted position of leading jockeys of the season, were Felix Carr, Jerry Chorn, Danny Maher, Patsy McCue, Cash Sloan, Bobby Isoni, Charley Thorpe, Henry Spencer, Dick Claw-son, Johnny Reiff, Nash Turner, Sam Dog-gett, Bill Caywood, Bobby Hothersall, Frank OLeary and Joe Piggott. "Soup" Perkins headed the list in Halmas year, 1895. He was a good rider colored, as were Clayton, Carr, Chorn, Hamilton, Overton, Murphy and Simms. Little Hudgins is one of the mere handful of colored jockeys that have won even one race in the past decade. Henry King, that rode for Billy Burtschell a few seasons back, was about the only capable or promising colored rider since Jimmy Lee and D. Austin. John Bullman, the equal if not the peer of McAtee when astride a two-year-old, Georgo Odom, Jimmy AVinkfield colored, Eddie Dugan, Arthur Redfern, Frank ONeill, AVillie Shaw, Cal Shilling, Kelly Phillips, George Archibald, Phil Musgrave, Guy Burns, Ros-, coe Troxler, Joe Notter, Bill Knapp and Bill Buchanan were among the good riders of the early part of this century who did not quite make the grade to the top of the list in win-. ning mounts. Frequently their percentage of winners was higher than that of the actual leader. In recent years there have been many capable riders unable to finish on top. McAtee, Johnson, Coltiletti, Laverne Fator, En-1 sor, Turner, Kummer, Schuttinger, McDer-mott, Lyke and Tom McTaggart are among them. Also the peerless one Earl Sande. Almost invariably, it takes a good rider to head the list But not always, even seldom, is he the best of his time. Sloan, Sande and Spencer are shining ex-- amples.
