JOCKEYS IN TRAINING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume X, Issue 478, 21 September 1899, Page 11

JOCKEYS IN TRAINING.

People who see a popular jockey at the post, skin like velvet, muscles like steel, and weighing scarcely more than a good-sized doll, hardly ever pause to reflect on what has to be gone through to attain this result. Cases have been known, says an English writer, where a jockey, anxious to ride a favourite horse for a particular race, has accomplished a reduction of half a stone within twenty-four hours. Such “ wasting ” as this is, of course, simply playing with death, and persistence in it has consigned many a clever rider to a premature grave. Fred Archer, by a too severe system of wasitng, hastened his death in this way. That is to say, the fever which induced the delirium in which he shot himself was directly traceable to the privations he had voluntarily himself to in order to ride St. Mirin for the Cambridgeshire at 8.7. Different jockeys adopt various methods of wasting. Fred Archer used to spend entire days in his private Turkish bath, eating nothing meanwhile but a little dry toast, and drinking, every half hour or so, a steaming glass of hot water flavoured with

gin, in order to increase the perspiration. Even more heroic methods have often to be adopted. A Yorkshire jockey named Jacques once clothed himself in close upon three-quarters of a hundredweight of horse-cloths, and walked as hard as he could go from the grand stand at Newcastle to Gosforth Hall and back again, a distance of six miles. This feat he repeated three times within the twenty-four hours, making eighteen miles in all, and during that period he ate nothing whatever, On being weighed he was found to have lost no less than 171 b. John Osborne relieved himself of 71b of flesh in a single walk, but the walk in question covered forty miles and lasted nine hours. His diet on this occasion was a hard biscuit purchased at a roadside public-house, and a poached egg served in vinegar. John Arnull, again, once ate nothing but an occasional apple for eight consecutive days, in order to reduce himself to ride a particular horse for the Prince of Wales. Benjamin Smith, one of the gamest jockeys on record, who rode and won a race with a broken leg, used to live for days in front of an enormous open fire, eating practically nothing, and drinking huge quantities of senna tea. The only relaxation he permitted himself was in scraping off the perspiration.