RACING

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1346, 10 February 1916, Page 5

RACING

TCD SLOAN AND HIS EOOK

Fifteen years ago the name of Tod Sloan was a household word n racing circles, and no doubt the little man from America was a very fine jockey, for he was a master of the art of pace, a strong and capable finisher, and extraordinarily successful in this country, says the “Field." There cam? a time, however, when the stewards of the Jockey Cub refused to renew his riding license, and in his case this meant h s disappearance from the English turf. Sloan, it should be pointed out, was not warned off, as has very frequently, but always wrongly, been stated, the truth being that he was merely not allowed to r.de any longer, and in the case of .a jockev that would probably also mean that he would no : " be al'owed to train. Anyhow, his vocation was at an end, and after a time he went to France, and has generally lived there since: and it is understood that he is, or was recently, driving a motor car at the front. Now he has written a history of his life which gives one the idea of being a candid revelation, and which, incidentally, explains why it was that he was refused leave to ride. On page 188 of his book he states that the sum he would have cleared had Codoman beaten Berrill in the Cambridgeshire was about £66,000. That the stewards had ample ev'dence as to the magnitude of S’oan’s betting transactions, and that his license to ride was refused because of his betting, we have not the slightest shadow of doubt, though we have absolutely no real knowledge as to the correctness of our surmise. All through the book Sloan shows himself to have been a gambler, and gambl ng on the part of a jockey is always treated in drastic fashion when it is proved to the stewards of the Jockey Club. The opening chapters of the book treat with the author’s boyhood, and are interesting enough; and it is somewhat surpr sing to learn that Sloan had a’most a hatred of horses in his younger days, and that he tried many forms of earning his living before he went into a racing stable. There :s a good deal in th’s part of the book about one “Pittsburg Phil” and ether professional gamblers, and the author makes it plain enough that he himself quickly became a believer in the

“get-rich-quick” system of life, and had little sympathy with the amass-

ing of wealth by long and continued labour. Still, it is evident that by degrees Sloan became a real lover of horses, that he studied hard to find out their peculiarities, and that, having secured a fair amount of knowledge, he- used that knowledge in h.s race riding with satisfactory results. All through the book the author shows that he has been a man

of action who was never inclined to dawdle through life, and if it had net been that he suffered from swelled head —as he explains very thoroughly—when at the zenith of his riding fame, and been content with the just awards his profession gave him, he would no doubt have continued . his racecourse successes and amassed a considerable amount of wealth. At the same time, he (on his own showing) was too authoritative, too confident, and took too high a hand for the average English owner, and this accounts for the fact that, while he acquired popularity with the mob, he never endeared himself to the average English racegoer, much as h's riding might be admired.

At the matinee recently held in London for the Australian wounded, at which a Barrie playlet was given, many other distinguished people assisted. The excellent programme was contributed to by Miss Daisy Kenney (violin), Miss Irene Scharrer (piano), Mr. Beno Moisiewitch, Mr. H. B. Irving. Mme. Ada Crossley, Miss Alice Crawford, Mr. Edward Sass, Mr. Harry Tate, Mr. George Robey. Miss Ivy Schilling and Mr. Jack Morrison danced their clever and exhilarating “Danse de Champagne.” In an interval Mme. Clara Butt made the announcement that the mat nee had resulted in the sum of £2641.