Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette With which is incorporated the Weekly Standard THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1905. DISHONEST JOCKEYS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 783, 9 March 1905, Page 6

Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette With which is incorporated the Weekly Standard THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1905. DISHONEST JOCKEYS.

From time to time there have been sinister rumours to the effect that a jockey’s ring is in existence in Auckland, and tales of a similar character are also current in both Sydney and Melbourne. Whether there is any truth in the assertion it is exceedingly difficult to say, but there is a probability that the matter has been somewhat exaggerated. What is true, however —and the matter admits of no question —is that all over the world there are to be found riders who are foolish enough, to call it by no worse a name, to throw over their employers and <c pull” their mounts at the bidding of people who are pecuniarly interested in the fact of the horse winning or losing. Auckland is no exception in this, for there is rarely a race meeting goes by but we are treated to some glaring instance of stiff running, which sometimes is detected by the stewards, but more often is not. When this occurs the public invariably blame the owner, but it often occurs that he is wrongfully accused, and that in addition to bearing the public odium he also losses his money because the rider has been bribed by some dishonest rogue to lose the race. Writing on the subject a Melbourne scribe says : —“ When will riders, ready to listen to the tales of these ‘ underground engineers,’ be brought to see that the game is not worth the candle ? The poor fools I They should know that, once they put themselves in the hands of the tricksters, they are doomed for a certainty. Sooner or later the exposure must come, and when trouble is eventu ally struck, the man who did the dirty work is the first to be pounced upon. “In nine cases out of ten, as experience shows, he is made the scapegoat ‘ Out ’ he goes, no matter how his companions fare. Is the risk worth taking ? Most assuredly not. Yet there are lunatics ever ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of getting a few paltry pounds dishonestly. They very often rob their best friends at the instigation of a mob that would not give them a helping hand if they were helpless in the gutter. Once a rider, who does these things ceases to be a ‘useful’ tool, his former prompters want no more of him. If he comes hanging about them, his old friends ( ?) cross the road to avoid him I Yet, though this is the common fate of the horseman who goes back on his employer at the bidding of certain conspirators, whose service he enters, such idiots can generally be found in the ranks. Such fraud may succeed for a while, but it is only a question of time with it, and when the reckoning comes, it is, as we have said, the rider concerned who mostly has to bear the whole burden. Recent happenings show this, and it would be a good thing if, from these lessons, horsemen liable to go wrong take warning, and refuse to allow themselves to be used in the way indicated.”