“Sods I Have Cut On The Turf” Light But Readable

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 4

“Sods I Have Cut On The Turf” Light But Readable

"Don’t bet with a bookmaker if you see him knocking spikes into his shoes.” That piece of light-hearted advice is given by Jack Leach in his book "Sods I have Cut on Tlie Turf” (Victor Gollanz, Ltd.). Leach, a member of a wellknown English racing family, and a successful jockey in the 1920’5, writes engagingly about many aspects of racing and of some of the great characters and persons he met in the game. One was Edgar Wallace "He thought he knew everything about racing. I never met a man who knew less He fought a continuous battle against the bookmaker, and hardly won a round,” he says.

Another was Fred Astaire, an old friend of the author “He was a familiar figure at Belmont Park, Newmarket, Longchamps and other places of interest as far back as the 1920'5, and with that loose casual stride of his could move as fast as anyone I ever saw towards the bookmakers if he fancied one and thought the price was right” Leach won the Two Thousand Guineas on Adam’s Apple in 1927, and was rid ing when Steve Donoghue, "Brownie” Carslake, Frank Bullock, Freddy Fox, Michael Beary and Gordon Richards made the competition stiffer than it had probably ever been before or since.

In discussing the merits of jockeys past and present, Leach thinks it as well to leave out Fred Archer and Richards and to talk about the next best. *TTie«e two were so far in front of their contemporaries that to mention their names spoils the argument immediately.” Richards, he says, could always do things in a race that other top-class jockeys could only do sometimes. With some hesitation, Leach settles for Ribot as perhaps the best horse he has seen. But the horse to fascinate him most was Epinard. Convincingly he tells why. Leach offers much else of interest and value in his book. There are many more anecdotes and reminiscences and there are his views on training, the selection and breaking of a yearling, handicapping and tips for apprentices and punters.

Leach’s book moves along at a good pace, and it is a measure of his skill as a writer that the attention of even the racing novice is engaged from start to finish.

Byrd Memorial. The daughter of Rear-Admiral R. E. Byrd will arrive in New Zealand from Los Angeles on Friday to represent the family at the unveiling of the Byrd National Memorial at Wellington by the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake).— PA.