Untitled

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 539, 18 April 1901, Page 7

John Osborne, whose six and forty years of uprightness in the saddle earned him the name of the “Bank of England jockey,” was reared in a rough and ready school. His father bred and trained a lot of good horses. His maxim was “ Plenty of betf, plenty of ham, plenty of bread, plenty of beer, and plenty of work.” John got his first mount in ’46, when he was thirteen, and his last in ’92, when 58. Hie great strength as a jockey lay in his ter-ific rush at the finish, his weakness in waiting too long* John thinks George Fordham the best j ickey he ever rode against, not excepting Fred. Archer, and that thoroughbred racin? cattle of the present day are not up to . those of the past, either in bone or stamina. He believes that horses should be treated kindly, and not cruelly punished, after the style of Areher, to squeeze the last ounce out of them. Although thousands of racers have passed through his hands he has never once been “savaged.”