"THE CROUCHING JOCKEY" WHO PRECEDED SLOAN.

It has been pointed out by a writer in the Daily Telegraph that two, if not three, of the greatest English jockeys of this century — Jem Robinson, George Fordham. and ■Fred Archer — rode somewhat in Sloan's crouching style. As regards Jem Robinson, there are few left (says an English writer) who can remember some of his most magnificent efforts in the saddle, such as his victory on Flatcatcher for the Two Thousand in 1848, his dead-heat on Russborough for the Doncaster St. Leger in 1850, which Voltigeur won in ihe deciding heat; and (perhaps the most striking of all) his victory on Rathmines for the Houghton Handicap in 1849. Those, however, who are old enough to travel back in memory for 50 years will recall that Jem (Robinson generally distributed his weight by placing it upon the withers of the horse, as .was abundantly demonstrated when, in the St. Leger of 1850, lie came with Russborough in th<S last few strides, so that Job Marson, the rider of Voltigeur, was completely unnerved. Job Marson was famous for riding bolt upright, and, according to the late Lord Ribblesdale — no mean judge, by the way, of racing, which he owed mainly to the hints given him by Geneial Peel, whose stud he bought in 1855 — Marson was* seen at his best when, sitting as straight and stiff in the saddle as an automaton, he won several two-year-old races upon Kingston, one of the lot bought by Lord Ribblesdale from General Peel. 'Again, in the race for the Two Thousand Guineas, just 50 years ago, which Jem Robineon won upon Mr B. Green's Flatcatcher, the great jockey leant forward uopn his horse's withers so much that he was unnoticed by most of the onlookers, who were watching the race between Mj Payne's Glendower and sRIr Moore's Blaze, who finished close to the judge's chair, whereas Flatcatcher finished close to the cords — there were no white rails then at the end of the Rowley Mile — on the other side of the course. In his poem on "The Ring," "John Davis," alias the late iLord Winohelsea and Nottingham, speaks of Jena Robinson as " the crouching jockey," a pose in the saddle which deprived his seat -of that grace which was so conspicuously displayed by his contemporaries, Frank Butler and Alfred Day. *