Walter Besant. The tiny boy who won the
Cesarevitch on Don Juan received L1,000 after the race, and it must be
remembered that this child had not left school. Mr. Herbert Spencer has
not earned L1,000 by the works that have altered the course of modern
thought; the child Martin picked up the amount in a lump, after he had
scurried for less than five minutes on the back of a feather-weighted
thoroughbred. As the jockey grows older and is freed from his
apprenticeship he becomes a more and more important personage; if his
weight keeps well within limits he can ride four or five races every day
during the season; he draws five guineas for a win, and three for the
mount, and he picks up an infinite number of unconsidered trifles in the
way of presents, since the turfite, bad or good, is invariably a
cheerful giver. The popular jockey soon has his carriages, his horses,
his valet, and his sumptuous house; noblemen, millionaires, great dames,
and men and women of all degrees conspire to pamper him: for
jockey-worship, when it is once started, increases in intensity by a
sort of geometrical progression. A shrewd man of the world may smile
grimly when he hears that a popular rider was actually received with
royal honours and installed in the royal box when he went to the theatre
during his honeymoon, but there are the facts.
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