JOCKEYSHIP.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1461, 25 April 1918, Page 3

JOCKEYSHIP.

What makes a successful jockey? Perhaps it cannot be said that a jockey is altogether born and not made, for practice and experience have their effect. At the same time, unless a boy or man has what may be called an instinctive aptitude for race riding, it is exceedingly improbable that he will ever come to much. Indeed, this aptitude is the chief essential, says “Pathfinder” in “Stage and Cinema.” Many successful trainers, not only of horseflesh but of the lads under their charge, I have met in my time, and such men as Walter Higginbottom, Jack Mayo and Tom Lamond take the greatest care with their apprentices. Some of these are very fair horsemen when entering upon their indentures, whilst others are novices. I have seen one of the best Australian trainers take as much patience with a lad’s horse studies as any schoolmaster. Stone told an amusing story. A boy named Smith, who afterwards made a big reputation, went to his stable after having had some experience elsewhere and was told to sit in the stand and pay particular attention to a race which was about to be run. When it was over his master proceeded to extract his opinion. “Well, how do you think the boy rode?” he was asked. “Oh, he rode very well,” was the reply, too general to be- acceptable. “Yes,” continued the trainer, “but what did he do right or wrong? Did you notice anything in particular?” “Well, sir,” Smith replied, “I thought he would have won if he had been trying,” the implication, of course, being that the horse was not “on the job,” an idea which Smith had gained from the manner in which things were done in some other stables whose methods he thought he had fathomed.