Presents Showered Upon Jockeys.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue XV, 13 October 1900, Page 687

Presents Showered Upon Jockeys.

Xo actress, however popular and fascinating, receives more or a greatervariety of gifts from unknown wellwishers than does the successful jockey. Gamblers are proverbially generous, and every “winner” a jockey rides puts it in the power of betting men to display their instinctive generosity, and what nuore proper and logical than that it should be shown towards the jockey who has thus empowered them? It is in this way that jockeys are the recipients of hundreds of gifts of all kinds and descriptions from admirers in the course of every year, more especially during the “flat race season.” They range in character from threepenny pieces to bank notes up to the value of £500; sometimes, but not often, even more; and from kittens to blouse boats and steam launches. Some years ago a jockey who had had a very good season, received eight gold watches, fourteen tie pins (each worth from £2 to £4O), five rings, bank notes to the aggregate value of £.370, seventy-two boxes of cigars, twenty cases of wine and spirits, a number of handsomely mounted whips, and walking sticks, a grand piano, and a Canadian canoe, all from donors

who preferred to remain unknown. From other friends who had not the same preference the jockey received a smart victoria, two splendid saddle horsts, and —a litter of young pigs. Probably no jockey ever had so many friends among betting men as had Fred Archer, and every year he received van loads of presents, the majority of them valuable, from persons quite unknown to him. Had he never received any of his vast professional earnings he might easily have lived upon the perestns sent him, selling those things he did not require to obtain what he might want. Stacks of boxes of cigars and cases of liqueurs used to arrive at the “Tinman's” home, not infrequently being presents from the manufacturers. He would have had a most expensive stable had he kept all the horses presented and accepted all those offered to him. Every conceivable article of wearing apparel was constantly sent to him by admirers. He received on a certain date every year a dozen fine linen dress shirts and a dozen day shirts, together with a gross of collars from an Irish linen maker, who had once backed a mount the “Tinman” had steered to a long odds victory. Another admiring tradesman used to send him a dozen fancv waistcoats everv Derbv Dav.

Jewellery of all kinds and iu profusion he received, and probably uo jockey ever received more anonymous gifts of money than did Archer. On one big occasion he received ten bank notes for £ 100 in an envelope addressed in a palpably feminine hand. But he never discovered the donor’s name. Someone who knew the “Tinman” intimately has asserted that the presents sent him anonymously during the years of his highest fame must have been worth between £3OOO and £3500 per annum. "Moray” Cannon holds much the same place in public estimation as Archer held in his day, but his "presentation list" is probably less extensive, for the reason that Cannon has more successful rivals than Archer had, and his position is not quite unchallenged. He has, however, no reason to complain about the ungenerosity of his admirers, and he could start in business as either a wine or cigar merchant, or a jeweller .in a modest way, with the stocks he has received in presents since he first forged to the leading rank of jockeys. Tod Sloan has had a remarkably successful racing career since be first went to England. It is even said that his earnings have reached £30,000 a year, but this may be hyperbolical. In anv ease his income must run into

five figures, and the number of presents sent him is enormous. During the course of one week he has received as presents cheques ami bank notes to the value of some thousands, to say nothing of other tokens of esteem of all kinds. His fancy for jewels ami jewellery has not been lost sight of by his admirers; indeed, jewellery has always been a favourite form of showing appreciation of jockeys, and Sloan must have a good collection of watches, rings, and such like trifles, which were sent him by friends; and it would tax the vocabulary of a broker’s man to enumerate the whole list of the presents he has received since he rode his first "winner.” A few betting men make it a practice to send some kind of present to the jockeys who ride winning horses they have backed, the gift equalling in cost a small percentage of the money won; and a well-known sportsman who does not run horses himself confessed to the writer recently that the practice generally cost him E2OO a year, and one particularly good season cost him nearly £9OO. This is an interesting statement, for another reason, as it shows that even if' the “small percentage” were two and a half his winnings for that particular season must have amounted t0£.3G,000.