A TIMELY INQUIRY ON ENGLISH RACING
I blame the new breed of jockeys
There is no doubt that "Fings ain't wot they used t'be" on the 1960 English racecourse. And a new breed of ex- perts, the armchair critics, gazing at horse-racing almost daily from the intimacy of their seats by the TV screen, proclaim this to be so,
What has brought about this change-real or fancied to a sport which has never been immune from smears and sus- picions since the days when the riding of Chifney brought his patron, King Charles II, into disrepute?
At Epsom recently there was
a crowd of Derby-sized propar- 1io (150,000 strong) to follow the six races.
There were five other Flat fixtures and one under National Hunt Rules at Newton Abbot. A million bets were placed with bookmakers and the Tote by punters all over the country.
How
Caution
seriously, then. has in public confidence racing's administration been shaken?
and
conduct
Laster Piggot, stand-by for the small backer, was severely cautioned by Hurst Park Stewards recently for casing his mount out of a place.
"Doping" has received un- precedented publicity with six stable inds due to face, charges for complicity in this line later this month.
All such happenings tend to alarm that section of the public which could never be brought
By CLIVE GRAHAM
the North of England, told re-lo stables, and lock them up for cently of the strict upbringing the night on the eve of any big that he received when appren-impending coup. ticed to old Dobson Peacock at Middleham, in Yorkshire.
"Even when I had Anished my time, he would insist on my being under his watch and ward, night and day. if we were stay. ing away from Middleham visit some big race meeting."
to
He told of an occasion when the old man and he stopped at a York hotel on the way to Chester races, Dobson noticed 100 а friendly Willie strike acquaintance with a young girl in the hotel lounge, after their evening meal.
Restraint
J
Such discipline cannot be enforced nowadays. And the that in a old-timers think matter of years, when the Smith Cotr. BMI brothers, Harry
and other futnous Rickaby. names come down from the number board, the English racing scene will be dominated by those hard-trained saddle- experts from Australia.
Problem
The pool from, which young English champions of the future be drawn is steadily diminishing.
can
A jockey, to hit the top, should be within a 10lb. weight bracket between 8st: 4lb. and et. alb-when fully grown and lewer lads in this category those days.
"None of thy monkey tricks," that racing he ordered. "Thour to move to believe anyway results
sedulously into my bedroom now and there are were manipulated by o bunch of spend night wit me.' crooks.
not
Champion
Horse-racing wooby certainly misses one of the greatest draw ing cards which have marked it since the mid-twenties - the name of Gordon Richards in the jockeys frame.
Sir Gordon, knighted for his services in 1953, made his mark as an outstanding race rider; champion jockey 26 times and an unequalled am- bassador.
His determination, his will te win and his sense of "games." manship" made a victory over him a mark of honour for any of his fellow jockeys..
That intense spirit of rivalry when a fell at San- departed down six years ago finally forced Telire
turn and Gordon
trainer.
There is no doubl, to my mind. that the art of lockeyship has And. result. declined as a
worse still there appear to be remarkably few of the younger jockers equipped with Gardon's many-sided talents.
Laziness
Five of the plum riding jobs in Europe are now held by Australians: Scoble Breasley (in England), George Moore (in France). Gammet Bougoure. Ron Hutchinson and BH Willamson (in Ireland).
The standard of race-riding at Goodwood last week appeared lamentably low. In a number of races the jockeys were unable to keep their mounts straight, and it could have been due only to sheer luck that there was not at least one pile-up.
to the
"Don't blame us," said one of the senior jockeys. "The trouble with racehorses nowadays is thai they are allowed pick
up bad habits by incompetence and laziness - ot the youngsters who ride them at exercise or look after them "in stables."
To back this view, he described young Bobble Elliott as the only out-of-the-way
young rider to apprentice
emerge from the ranks during the current year. Willie Neveit. one of the greatest jockeys ever to ride in
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"And I had all arrangements says made to go out dancing." Willie, "but old Dobson, know ing that was riding two fancied runners for him next day, wouldn't even let me Say good night to the girl.
14
Stanley Wootton, the Epsom trainer, kept his academy of young jockeys under equally severe restraint when he brought out his series of crack sopren- tices in the twenties. And Alty Persse would
conine his boys
Four D. Jones
BY MADDOCKS
GEE,1
HOPE I THINK THIS ARTIST FRIEND IS
SOCIABLE
FERDINAND
NANCY
THE RICH KID INVITED ME TO
WATCH TV.
This is a problem for trainVETS and racing rulers which will became increasingly difficult to solve,
TOMORROW: The forgotten
men.
-(London Express Service).
YES? WHAT IS IT? AH POSTMASTER MY FRIEND, WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
·RADIO-TV SER
WOW---YOU ĮMUST HAVE A
CREEPY SHOW ON, ROLLO
BRICK BRADFORD
BRICK PUTS THE, TIME-KOP KINTO AN ORBIT AROUND EARTH NOT KNOWING A BOMB IS HIPPEN IN ANAL "
WELL. MEN
HOW WELL BUILD
OUR SPACE
PLATFORM/
NO-
THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY, AUGUST IL
HI-FI-HIGHBURY Has Stirling
Has Stirling Moss started
Hi-fi coach-as-you-play comes to Arsenal, In the Lop picture Manager George Swindin watches practice as chief coach Ron Greenwood instructs players by radio. Players have receivers strapped to their backs and wear a tiny earphone. The picture at right shows Jim Bloom- field in radio-harness, hay- ing his earphone fixed. The bottom picture shows 1 palm-size close-up of a
player's amplifier.
VINCENT, DEAR FELLOW, MY YOUNG FRIEND HERE IS NEW TO THIS PART OF THE WORLD, AND HE IS IN
NEED OF A ROOM....
CRACKL
PAITIN
PUT ON YOUR SPACE SUITS. CHECK YOUR YOU'LL HAVE TON OXYGEN AND THE DOUBLE AS A
HEATING ELEMENTS WELDER! MR. HARRIS OF YOUR SUITS--
BRICK, I THINK
WHAT'S WRONG?
THEN
LOOK NO MORE MY GOOD FRIEND
MY LITTLE
YELLOW HOUSE
15 FULL OF
SUCH ROOMS
By Mik
By Ernie Bushmiler
IT'S OUR THICK WALL-TO-WALL
RUG
racing again too soon?
!
By RICHARD BERRY
This week Stirling Moss, by common consent the world's
fastest driver, was back on the race track.
Less than two months after he was badly hurt in the Belgian
Grand Prix, he drove in the Swedish Grand Prix.
Next week he will be driving : in the Portuguese Grand Prix and then next month in the Au- tomobile Tour de Frarice.
Moss has won most of the practice of "slipstreaming" world's great motor races, many talling a Ferrari so closely that of them several times. He has the rival car acted as a wind- been Britah's champion nine break, letting Bass conserve fuel
and tyres. Is Moss racing again too soon? times,
One of his regular rivals no- Mow is at his best in the After the Belgian crash, his knowledges "When I pass Moss, duels on the corners, where manager Ken Gregory wild I wonder what is wrong with his drivers must racially change Hoes would not be competing car.
down from speeds of 160 mph to again in this year's world Skys Australia's Jack Brab- 160 moh and below, then change championship. But the Porta-ham: "He's the toughest com- up again. guese race counts towards the petitor anybody can have." championship.
No secret
Thirty year old Moss has |been driving cars since he was 10
and racing since he was 18,
Muscular but small--he weighs And his father. Mr Alfred 11 stone and stands 5ft 8in. Moss, a London dentist, and his "with my thick socks on" he mother, have made no secret of is ideally built to withstand the the fact that they would like hours of high-speed driving in their son to give up racing al- la recer's tiny cockpit. together.
But Moss himself appears to have had no doubt that he would' be back on the racing track within weeks.
He has been hurt before and has carried on racinat. Once be drove with a leg in a plaster cast. He has 'sped around curves while nearly blinded by gives fragments in his eyes.
He saw no reason not to carry on after the Belgian crash.
No fool
It is not that Moss is fool- hardy. No cooler brain, no more intelligent acetstment of the odds, exista on the track.
It simply that for Moss racing is an obsession, He is man who is a competent hand at most sports from pole to underwater swimming.
He likes dancing and is always a sociable companion in any party. Since his estrange ment from his wife, Katle, he bas been seen out at dinner dates with a number of oretty women.
But all these activities simply enjoyable ways of killin time between races,
SHEAFFER'S
IMPERIAL IL;
Sheaffer quality features at
moberate
prices
Just the weather for Rowntree's JELLIES
Ah! That Food!
That Service! That Swissairs
SWISSAI
Knows every trick
Likes danger
Says Moss "The thing to re- member is that it is the speed with which you come out of the corner that matters.
If you come out of a corner five miles an hour taster than any other man, you've got a big advantage going into the straight.
Dangerous? Of course. would not like to drive a racing
His experience has taught car less there was an element of danser involved," says Moss him every telak of the trade, “any more than, I'would like to He can swing a car into a slide ¦ fight a bull without horns. to kill speed, or use a bank "And when I lake a corner bordering on a turn as 'n buf- | perfectly. It's like a painter who fer to keep his rear wheels has been swesting of a portrait on, the road.
and can't quite capture a smile, then makes it with one stroke of the brush."
He won last year's Italian Grand Prix by the dangerous
OLYMPIC BRIEFS
Rome, Aug. 10. Love conquers all, even at the Olympics, but it is not going to be easy.
The male and female portions of the Olympic Village are divided by a 10-foot high wife fence running the length of the compound. Fraternisation, cording to officible, with have to be outside the village..
☆ ★ ✰
RC-
Castelgandolfo, Aug. 10. One of the spectators with (the best view of the Olympic rowing and canoeing events will be Pope
at Lake Albano John XXIII.
The Pope's summer palace here atands on a hill high above the lake. From his terrace j.the Pontiff has a clear view of the lanes marked out for competition on the waters of the lake the filled in crater of an extinct volcano,
Rome, Aug. 10. Rome civic authorities, leaving no stone unturned to help visit ing tourists, have ereeled hun- dreds of thousands of signposts throughout the city pointing the way to the various Olympic sites,
Pranksters have made the scheme backfire however, by Awisting all the signs in reverse directions: Result is that any- cne trying to follow the signs invariably winds up driving in a circle. Authorities were report- ed undecided today on whether to try to keep the signs point- ing in the right, direction, or whether to abandon the scheme entirely.
Rome's
Rome, Aug 10, 'fwhite elephant" subway, which for years had the dubious distinction of being the only big-city subway to end in e meadow, finely has a place to go.
connect
The subway, built by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to the downtown tes the planned site of the 1942 World Fair, was for pers
with
| rogerdód ás a joke by Romana. Now, however, with the shift- ing ad some of the Olympic
events to the World's Fair site, the subway will fulfil a useful purpose at last.-UPI,
Rome, Aug. 10.
nations Twenty-six
have entered the Olympic boxing tourmanent to date.
They are Australia, Austria, Burma, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Ceylon, Den- mark, the Philippines, Finland, iran, Germany, Ghana, Iraq,
Nigeria, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Rhodesia, Rumania, Switzer land, Thalland, Nationalist China, Tunisia and Uganda.
Rome, Aug. 10.
The fallan army has put a fleet of trucks, Jeeps and buses at the service of the Olympic athletes and officials.
An enterprising motor dealer has also provided 200 motor scooters, identical with the ones which whiżż daily through the narrow streets of the city, Athletes can use the scooters to get around the Olympic Village faster, and a few intrepid carly avais have already tried them
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