SAM CRACKNELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2370, 3 August 1899, Page 36

SAM CRACKNELL.

" Galopin," a- Melbourne writer, has been ' Jumping Sam Cracknell, who now, at 52 ! rears of age, is trying his hand at fruitj flowing. Craeknell won the Melbourne Cup ■ >ii Darriwell and has won hundreds of _ other aces; Mr Sam Gracknell commenced his nar- : ative by relating how he came to miss riding x Jlink Bcmnjr in the Caulfield Cup of 1884. pYou gee, it was like this," he said. "Mr iL'albot engaged me to ride the mare, took me iro to Ballaratf, and drove me over to Dowling -.Forest, and we had a trial, me oa the mare jind a boy on a bob-tailed chestnut of JSoobie's, with a name like Alma. Blink Bonny was beaten badly, and I asked- to be Allowed to refuse to ride her in the race — the Caulfield Cup. That's how Georgie Blair jjot the mount. Mr ' Bill ' Forester came to ■ne before the day of the race, amd said, * Sammy, would you like to get up on a pretty food thing in the Caulfield Cup '!' ' Yes, cerainly,' says I, and he got fne a mount on anlother moke which ran nowhere, and I saw np.thing of Blink Bonny, barring her tail, in that race. But they never told me at Balla,tat that she had slipped on the training track !at a certain spot about a week before I rode flier in her trial. I femnd it out afterwards, and then remembered that she ' propped ' and. ' hung in ' in just the same place .when I 'tode- her in her gallop. She was frightened ,'of falling, you see." Cracknell.. who is now an orchardist at Panton Hills, at Kangaroo has tried a strawberry farm, -and he i found it paid him. all right when Is a. pound .was obtainable. ivhen only 3d per pound Jwas procurable, I ploughed in my three acres l of strawberry plantation, and grew hay. I found that horses would eat hay, but I'm blamed if I could persuade them to eat cheap Btrawberries at 3d per pound." A genial little cynical farmer is this same Sammy, who, ■at S3 years of age, can. still ride the game "weight, 6.3, he did when, he was 15. A record this, again. " The best horse you ever rode, Sammy, eh?" '" Guesswork, of course," ■was the little man's rejoinder. " Didn't I Icat old Commotion in the Champion on him •16 years back, and didn't the judge say that •I was just pipped on the post by a short halfhead? I won the race, but Mr Pearson, Commotion's owner, gofc the money."