EX-JOCKEY AGED 104

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 65, 10 March 1933, Page 7

EX-JOCKEY AGED 104

RODE FIRST WINNER BEFORE N.Z. WAS BRITISH .John Faulkner, who rode his first winner in 1836 —four years before- New Zealand became a British Colony--was lying seriously ill at his home at Appleford, Berkshire, on January 23. He was then in his 105th year, his birthday being on March 12. He was an apprentice, eight years of age, when he had his first win, which was at Epsom, and his reward for winning was threepence.

When he was 102 years old he broke his thigh. Such an injury would have meant death to most aged people, but Faulkner recovered. During his riding career, nearly every bone in his body was broken at some time or other, and maybe his system became inured to such misadventures. Faulkner was born fin London, and his father was a mail coach driver. He has been married twice, and is the father of 32 children, ,the oldest of whom is over 70 and the youngest 31. Ho rode his last race in a steeplechase at Abingdon when ho was 74. It is one of his boasts that he never made a bet in his life. Faulkner has many interesting reminiscences of tho old days. He recalls the Cesarewiteh of 1856, in which he was just beaten out of a place on Dusty Miller, but the mount he remembered best was Rip Van Winkle, as this horse belonged to Palmer, wbo was hanged for poisoning Cook, another racing man.

He has a very poor opinion or the style of riding adopted by jockeys of the present day. “You can’t ride a horse, crouching like a monkey, with your arms and legs round his neck,” ho once said to a reporter. “There is nothing like sitting well hack, as wc used to fio in tho old days.”