San Antonio Daily Light

LIFE OF A JOCKEY.

WHAT ONE MUST DO TO BE A SUCCESSFUL RIDER.

The Excitement of Winning a Race-Necessity of Careful Habits-A Cool Head and Good Judgment-A Certain Knack.

Exhilaration.

The life of a professional jockey is full of the wildest and most unrestrained excitement. I doubt if its parallel can be found in any other vocation. Watch even the casual spectator of a horse race as he sits on the grand stand calmly viewing the start, and then see him as the horses speed around the track, the on looker becomes interested more and more until, by the time the winner has crossed the line, he is standing in his chair, madly waving his arms and cheering until his breath is gone.

That is the way a closely contested race affects even a passive spectator. To what feverish excitement then is the jockey himself subjected, who, next to the good mount under his saddle, is the most active participant in the contest? Yet amid it all the rider must be as cool and clear headed as if he were simply taking a "constitutional" morning canter on his father's favorite mare.

CAREFUL IN HABITS.

In order to be successful as a jockey one must necessarily be careful in his habits, and must be in what we might call partial training all the time. There is no necessity for the rigorous diet and abstemiousness which is considered essential to those who engage in athletic sports, but the most extreme care is absolutely necessary, that the weight may be kept down to the proper figure, and for that reason all food which has a tendency to increase flesh must be avoided.

For my own part I may say that I have always been temperate in my habits. I use tobacco to a small extent, but eat almost anything to which I take a fancy, although sometimes I am obliged to pay the penalty. It is my purpose always to keep myself down to about 112 pounds in weight. The lowest weight I have ever attained was 107 pounds, and the highest 130 pounds, so, to reduce myself to the right avoirdupois, I was once forced to knock off just eighteen pounds of superfluous flesh, and it was no easy undertaking.

When I find myself accumulating weight too rapidly I begin to take long walks, wearing sweaters and the heaviest winter clothing, which is not especially enjoyable in hot summer weather. A walk of from eight to ten miles, dressed in the condition described, will usually dispose of from one to two pounds of extra flesh. These walks are indulged in only when the necessity requires, and are by no means of daily occurrence, for which I am duly thankful.

The one all important requisite for a successful jockey is to keep a cool head and to possess an unerring judgment, for if he loses one and fails of having the other at a critical moment, he will never overcome the many obstacles that meet him with every turn of the track, and never win a race unless he is mounted upon a horse that will carry him through in spite of himself. There is as much strategy and finesse to be exercised on the race course as on the battlefield. One must know his enemy thoroughly, and must be alive to take instant advantage of any errors his opponents may make. He must endeavor to make his rivals use up all their strength before the critical moment comes, and must reserve for himself sufficient force to carry him safely through the final struggle.

A KNACK OF RIDING.

But above all, he should be very intimately acquainted with the capabilities of his own horse, and must be thoroughly conversant with all its points of weakness, as well as its elements of strength, for the former may often be taken advantage of if they are not known to his opponents. There is a certain knack of riding which it is difficult to explain, but which has a substantial existence just the same, that enables one to almost lift his horse along, especially in passing under the wire, when a fortunate leap will carry you to the front by even a nose. Many a lucky win of mine has been made in this way, noticeably in the recent race where Tea Tray and Tristan were at the fore, and Tristan won by so small a fraction that it is said that no one on the track saw the true result, excepting the judges. In that race, which was one of the most exciting in which I have ever been engaged, I was able to lift Tristan almost by main strength, when I felt that I had surely lost, just enough to win.

The sensations which a jockey experiences in speeding around the track are many and varied, and there is always the utmost exhilaration of mind, and every muscle of his body is drawn to a tension approaching the breaking point. He has little time to view the landscape within the inclosure, or to see the mad crowd that is cheering him on from the grand stand, or at the fence so close by the track, even if his eyes are not blinded by the showers of mud or the clouds of dust with which the enemy in front might to greet him. But he knows instinctively that the landscape and the crowd are there, and he hears the cheers of the mob faintly above the clattering of the horses' hoofs. These are quiet and subdued sounds at the start, which are completely lost the moment the first turn is made, and then they cease altogether until the homestretch is gained, when the noise grows gradually louder, but seldom becomes a good sized one for the jockey's ears. It is when the race is over and the victory is won that the jockey remembers all he has passed through. The nervous exhaustion occasioned by a record breaking mile is excessive, but a bath and rub down soon puts the jockey in healthy trim for the next race-William Hayward in Inter Ocean.