The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-06-11
The Routine of Their Daily Existence
Step by Step They Rise to Fame
Care Taken of Them by Own
ers-Of the Many Who
TRY Few Succeed

Try, Few succeed.
when boy enters a jockey school
he shuts the world behind him like a
nun that walls herself within a convent.
All energy of body and soul is concen-
trated to his craft. To him life means
the clank of the bride, the hoofthud,
the smell of straw, and the bookmak-
er's cry. He never learns anything I'M
related to this life. OF a dozen stable
boys l found only two that could name
the governors of their respective states.
Most of them believed Roosevelt to be
simply Rough Rider. and knew him
as Teddy Only one could tell me his
present office.
What they do develop is a savage
grit that let's them nudge death IA
miliarly with smiling face, forearm
and leg of flexible steel, and wits I'M
naturally keen Oh single line And
also, that pitiful legacy of the veteran
trainer-crabbed age of mind behind a
baby face. You have the living picture
of it all in 14-year-old Johnny Reiff,
who earns in ear more than a dozen
coleg professors.
The early training of a jockey is
thorough, severe and relentless. The
boys sleep in stable loft over the
horses. Summer and winter they are
W
pounding on the boards. They jump into
their clothes, shivering in the early
mornings chill, and hurry to a pump,
where a douse of cold water sweeps
away the cobwebs Of sleep. Then to
the horses, and for two hours each boy
exercises his string A String con-
sists Of two horses and exercising
means walking them about the track
until they are agreeably warm. After
breakfast-and the food at a jockey
school is of the most nourishing sort
the youngsters exercise another string
and employ an hour or more in doing
chores. The afternoon they spend at the
track, and by o'clock in the evening
they must be abed. Plenty Of time Is
allowed to them for recrea ton. The
trainers encourage the boys in such
sports as swimming, running and ball
playing. By constant practice of open
airdiversions, Tod Sloan has maintained
his excellent condition. To this day he
will leap a five-foot fence rather than
go through the gate. Marbles is the
favorite game of the stable boys. After
winning a $500 race at Manchester
last year. Johnny Reiff was found deep
ly interested playing marbles while
Lord Roseberry was waiting outside
the paddock to congratulate him.
THE life Of the embroyo Jockey is
of contrast. Until a boy shows signs of
a great talent he is liable to rough
treatment for any mistake or disobe-
dience. He learns to dread the trainers
balestick. 1t is on record that Ludden,
an English boy, was killed through the
cruelty of his master. On the other
hand. as soon as the apprentice displays
promise, he is nurtured and tended just
as scrupulously as the colt of high de-
gree.
TRAINERS are particularly anxious
that the boys go to church every Sum
day. One of them told me, with
flicker of profanity, that he had been
hunting for two days for Quaker
meeting house, as he had just in
dentured Quaker boy from Penn
sylvania poor house.
Tod Sloan has said that out of fifty
boys that lead the elephant to water,
two get into the circus, and he makes
the same average of boys who reach the
distinction of exercising horse Nnde1
the saddle This is the scond step in
the school. and the majority of appren-
tees, after three years, attain to II
only to learn that they have taken on
too much weight ever to be jockeys
Little wonder, then, that such unfor-
tunate youths. sickened at soul, dribble
out cheap existence as 'touts.' hostlers
and vagabonds. You can pick them ou
in sporting puslieus-wan-faced, stuntee
anisfits Of men. If boy has not at.
tanned to the second step before his six
teenth year, and while he is under Z;
pounds in weight, his future is behind
him. ALLEN Sangree in Ainsleess.