TRAINER AND SPORTING WRITER.

Southland Times, Issue 18857, 24 June 1920, Page 2

TRAINER AND SPORTING WRITER.

To the Editor. Sir, —In this morning’s Times Sir Modred is again advising jockeys what to do. He has serious doubts and hopes they will not waste their time. Sir Modred cannot give readers an account nor produce anything near facts about, what has passed, as I will show, yet he is trying to let us know what has to come. Sir Modred told us last week (in Saturday’s Times) that toe fashionable jockey was all right but that behind him there was an army of employees overlooked. He does not seem to know what apprentices, stable-hands, steeplechase and hurdle jockeys and flat race jockeys are paid or if he does be wilfully tries to deceive your readers. Now, I will try to let your readers know what Sir Modred is too advanced to learn. First: The apprentices’ minimum wage is ten shillings weekly and board and lodging. Every apprentice I employ, and I have got four, costs me thirty-five shillings i weekly. Stable-hands get thirty shillings j per week and they are boarded outside, their board and lodging costing thirty shillings per week or £3 in all. Now, if Sir Modred j wants to clear up some of the untrue stateI ments he has made and let your readers see j by proof that those apprentices are uuder- ' paid, would he please look up the award for | apprentices to trades and professions in Ini vercargill and publish them in the Sporting | Notes. Then your readers whom he is al- | ways referring to, will be able to judge. I I would also ask him to add all war bonuses i granted to apprentices in the town and ask- ! Ed for of the Court on account of the cost ;of living. This added cost did not affect i the apprentice jockey; a wise Conference put this on to the owners and trainers. Does Sir Modred see where the N.Z. Rac- ! ing Conference is going astray ? j 2nd division: The steeplechase jockeys. | Sir Modred says that their occupation only, | lasts three months of the year. Could any- [ thing more misleading be written ? I have j had two steeplechase jockeys ia ;my employ; J. McChesuey, who was jjvith | me three years before, the war and sixteen i months since he returned; George Fielding, j two years and seven months before the I war and twelve months since he returned. II defy Sir Modred to say that either of those was far from the holiday crowd at [ Christmas time. They were right amongst i them, plenty to do and, as I will let you know, well paid for doing it. The worst jumping horse in Rorke's Drift Lodge was Wild Pilgrim as he has not yet won. He started in his first hurdle race at Dunedin on June 5, 1919, and by June 5, 1920, J. McChesney had been paid, and the various jockey clubs collected his fees for him, £llO for riding Wild Pilgrim. He was always amongst the holiday crowds. Now Fielding is getting a retainer which added to his earnings brings him in £IOOO a year—very poorly paid! I forgot to ask Sir Modred if he had ever served an apprenticeship or if he started from where he is now ? Sir Modred makes great headway by saying that the stakes have risen. Does he want his readers to believe that every horse that starts in a race gets a stake? Twelve ia about an average of the starters in each race in New Zealand. The first horse ia right, the second gets some, but what about the other ten ? Seeing that Sir Modred’s bread and butter or living is writing, why does he not writ* something useful ? Why not let us know how many horses started in Southland and did not win a stake ? A sporting writer in Otago said he was approached by Mr Sheath and asked to write favourably of the Jockeys’ Association. Sir Modred was not approached ? Oh, no! Can he account for one hundred and fifty jockeys resigning from the association, such men as C. Fknerson, Roy Reed, Ashley Reed, Harold and George Young, A. J. McFlynn, jockeys right at the top of the profession? They have studied this out from every side, yet a sporting reporter in Esk street, Invercargill advises those men what to do. Surely some one should see that this superior intelligence does not go to waste. Once more, re apprentices or jockeys; W. Robinson has been in my employ eight years, J. McChesney four and a half years, I. Tdson three, years. I would like to see these men do better than they axe now doing, hut I am sure they are all earning more than Sir Modred, Sheath, Davies and Co.—l am, etc., PATRICK T. HOGAN. Rorke’s Drift Lodge, June 22. (We have deleted from our correspondent's letter some personal references that have no bearing on the jockeys’ dispute, but we have given him a great deal of latitude in criticising our sporting writer.— Ed. S.T.)