So far as income is concerned, even a fourth-rate jockey may be a gentleman; he may at any rate earn a thousand a year. The expert horsemen of the period enjoy a total immunity from all the coarser labour of the stable. The fashionable, or, as he is called in the slang of the turf, the "crack" jockey, as soon as his indentures have expired, requires only to ride his appointed horse; he has no grooming to do; he keeps a valet to assist him in changing his dress and to look after his "traps." He travels from one race meeting to another in a first-class carriage, very probably as the companion of the nobleman or gentleman for whom he is going to ride or has been riding. In the winter season he "will to hounds," and enjoy the pleasures of the chase on his own thoroughbred; or he "will to town," and indulge in the theatre or the opera. When the world was without railways, jockeys required to walk their horses from one race meeting to another; and strings of these animals, accompanied by their grooms, might during the race season be encountered proceeding leisurely along the highways of the country at about the rate of sixteen or twenty miles a day. A celebrated jockey of his time records that his father, a trainer and owner of race-horses in a small way of business, sent him away while almost a child to travel the country with a race-horse, to appear at the different race meetings, enter his horse for those stakes and matches he thought the nag could win, and generally transact such business as was incidental to the situation. "With saddle strapped behind his dapper back" he did as he was bid, and in time became a jockey of renown, ultimately settling down as a trainer himself, in which calling he attained celebrity, training in his day several winners of the Derby and St. Leger.
Another feature of the past may be alluded to. A hundred years ago, the trainers of the race-horses were, as a general rule, the confidential grooms of the gentlemen for whom they acted. Now there are public trainers at Newmarket and elsewhere, who make it their business to take charge of the horses of any number of gentlemen, and train them on terms mutually agreed upon.
There is one feature of jockey life which is likely, in the course of time, to die out—that is, the sweating jockeys had to undergo, and occasionally have still to endure, to be able to ride at a given weight. It is almost impossible for a growing, well-fed lad to keep from "making weight," and even set jockeys, men of mature years, must occasionally work hard to keep themselves down or bring themselves to scale after a winter's indulgence. In the old "wasting" days there were fewer jockeys than there are now, and no railways to admit of a jockey being whirled from Newmarket to Ayr on an hour's notice. At the present time there is a fair choice of jockeys at all weights to select from, so that sweating does not require to be so much resorted to, or, at least, not in the same degree as formerly. In some of the Newmarket stables, and in the Yorkshire and Berkshire stables as well, there may be found about twenty jockeys able to ride with ability at various weights.
Many anecdotes have been printed of the feats which were formerly accomplished by jockeys in order to reduce their weight. These men knew "Banting" long before the celebrated London upholsterer published his pamphlet, but did not systematically practise the art. Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist, author of The Road to Ruin, who was for a short period a jockey-boy at Newmarket, has described the painful process of "wasting" as it was practised in his day, about one hundred and twenty years ago, when the lads used to walk about for hours enveloped in heavy horse-cloths, trying with all their might to fine down their "too, too solid flesh."
Jockeys have told the writer that "wasting" is a severe penance, and requires to be done carefully. On occasions of quick sweating, pains must be taken to prevent illness, as, if the process be too rapidly carried on, fever or death might result. It is known that a jockey, if not careful as to work and diet, will increase from twenty to thirty pounds during the winter season; but, by taking vigorous exercise, "buried in flannel," he can come back to his proper weight in about twenty days. When occasion required it, as when a jockey was anxious to ride a favourite horse, cases have been known where a reduction of half a stone was accomplished within twenty-four hours. It is painful to see some jockeys after they have been engaged in "wasting"; they look as if all their muscular strength had departed, and as if they could only ride in their bones. Daley, the jockey who rode Hermit in the Derby, was cast by nature in the mould of a thirteen-stone man, and to keep himself at 8 st. 10 lb. or bring his weight to that figure when much beyond it must have been an exhausting process. Many a clever jockey has gone to a premature grave from over-exertion in wasting.
Wasting regimen varies according to taste or the constitution of the man. As some of them say, "What is meat and drink to one jockey is poison to another." Frank Butler's usual diet consisted of a pint of champagne and a slice of dry toast after each walk, while after each race he partook of a small portion of gruel in which was mixed a little brandy. A Yorkshire jockey, called Jacques—it is not on record whether or not he was, like Shakespeare's hero, a melancholy man—once reduced his weight no less than seventeen pounds in twenty-four hours. Three times within that period he walked from the grand stand at Newcastle to Gosforth Hall, a distance of three miles, making a tour of eighteen miles in all. Jacques was a famous and artful waster. His diet on the occasion under notice was a little tea with gin mixed in it, which caused him to perspire freely; a dry biscuit and a poached egg served in vinegar was all the food he took in twenty-four hours. Sam Darling, another olden-time jockey, walked on an average about five hundred miles a year in order to keep himself down to racing weight. Some jockeys used long ago to waste by means of hard riding, clad, of course, in heavy woollen garments; others preferred to do their penance in their walks from course to course, thus killing the proverbial two birds with one stone. John Osborne once relieved himself of seven pounds of superfluous flesh in one of these walks. Other horsemen have done the same. Many of the jockeys of sixty years ago were as good pedestrians as equestrians.
"Nimrod" tells us that the old system of wasting was as follows: "With jockeys in high repute it lasted from about three weeks before Easter to the end of October, but a week or ten days are quite sufficient for a rider to reduce himself from his natural weight to sometimes a stone and a half below it. For breakfast they take a small piece of bread and butter with tea in moderation; dinner is taken very sparingly—a very small piece of pudding and less meat; and, when fish is to be obtained, neither the one nor the other is allowed. Wine and water is the usual beverage, in proportion of one pint to two of water. Tea in the afternoon, with little or no bread and butter, and no supper. After breakfast, having sufficiently loaded themselves with clothes, that is, with five or six waistcoats, two coats, and as many pair of breeches, a severe walk is taken, from ten to fifteen miles. After their return home, dry clothes are substituted for those that are wet with perspiration, and, if they are much fatigued, some of them lie down for an hour before dinner, after which no strong exercise is taken.
"From nine at night until six or seven in the morning were the usual hours of sleep. Purgative medicines were resorted to by those who did not like excessive walking, consisting of Glauber salts only. John Arnull once ate nothing but an occasional apple for eight successive days, in order to reduce himself to ride a particular horse for the Prince of Wales. In later days the system was much modified, particularly the length of the walk, and the custom at Newmarket at that time was to go four miles out, where the person sweating had a house to stop at, in which there was a large fire, by which the perspiration was very much increased. Indeed, sometimes it becomes so excessive, that he may be seen scraping it off the uncovered parts of his person, after the manner in which the race-horse is scraped, using a small horn for the purpose. After sitting awhile by the fire and drinking some diluted liquid, he walks back to Newmarket, swinging his arms as he proceeds, which increases the muscular actions. Sufficiently cool to strip, his body is rubbed dry and fresh clothed, when, besides the reduction of weight, the effect is visible in his skin, which has a remarkable transparent hue. The most mortifying attendant on wasting is the rapid accumulation of flesh immediately on a relaxation of the system, it having often happened that jockeys weighing not more than seven stone have gained many pounds in one day from merely obeying the common dictates of nature, committing no excess."
It is essential that all jockeys should be careful about being of the proper weight, or when they are over it, of having the over-weight declared when going to ride, otherwise they would lose the race if they should happen to be first at the winning-post. When the jockey cannot ride at the prescribed weight it is made up by placing slabs of lead on the horse inclosed in woollen pockets. In all races the clerk of the scales requires to be very particular in seeing that jockeys weigh exactly the weight allotted to their horse. The weighing-out of a jockey for his race is a work of nicety: he is placed in the scale along with his saddle, and he must be in the very pink of condition if he can ride a severe long race and afterwards scale the weight he drew before mounting the horse. Trainers and owners have frequently experienced an anxious moment at the weighing-in of their jockey after the race; the bridle has sometimes to be taken off the horse and thrown into the scale before the "all right" of the clerk can be given.
Among the miscellanea appertaining to the subject of jockey life it may be mentioned that noblemen and gentlemen occasionally don the livery of the turf in order to ride at race meetings, chiefly, however, in hunting and steeple-chasing. They rarely display their talents in what are called "flat races"; but many gentlemen riders would make excellent professional horsemen, although, it is said, a professional can always give an amateur jockey a stone in the weights. There is a tradition in Yorkshire of a clever jockey who was a girl, but so far as we can learn it is only a tradition. Buckle was a successful and hard-working jockey; from 1783 to 1831 he was, indeed, the horseman of his day. An instance of his power of work may be stated—he would ride from his residence to Newmarket, take part in a trial, and then come home the same day to tea at six o'clock, the distance covered being ninety-two miles, not counting the riding he would accomplish on the course at the capital of the turf.