apprentice jockeys a long long time ago.

​Once upon a time, a time long, long ago, an owner with his own stable of racehorses was asked where he got his apprentices from. ‘I breed ‘em on the estate’, he replied straight-faced.
Trainers at the time insisted on starting apprentices at ages no more than nine or ten, arguing that that it was almost impossible to make jockeys of boys if they start out in their teens. At the time John Fairfax-Blakeborough wrote ‘Paddock Personalities’ the Education Act had made the procuring boys of nine or ten for work in racing stables defiance of a well-intentioned law, whether ‘bred on the estate’ or from the slums of Manchester – John Osborne preferred the rough and ready boy as his hardened outlook on life bred into him by deprivation and starvation made him better suited to what he had to overcome to be a successful jockey.
If you remember, in the early 1950’s trainers could still have boys apprenticed to them in their teens if it were their sons, as was the case with Lester Piggott who was apprenticed to his father and rode in his first race aged 13.
Even Lester was not street-wise when he had his first experience of the racecourse, so consider what it must have been like for little George Thompson who back in the days of match-races was thrown-up on one of his father’s horses. His father was led to believe the main condition of the race was ‘owners up’ but when he saw his opponent was to be ridden by a ‘Malton featherweight, he jockeyed himself off and threw-up his 7-year-old son who weighed only 2-st 13-lbs. Whether the boy had ever sat on a racehorse Fairfax-Blakeborough did not record, though as the boy’s instructions were ‘Hold the reins tight and as soon as they say ‘Go’ come home as fast as you can,’ one could be forgiving for believing that it was an original and unforgettable experience for the lad. He won and in later life became ‘a wonderful amateur jockey’. So all’s well that ends well. 
Of course, 2-st 13-lbs was quite heavy compared to an apprentice called Reynolds, aged 12, when he rode Koodoo to victory in the 1840 Wokingham Stakes for Captain Becher, he of Aintree fame. Young Reynolds’ walking weight’, as J.F.B. describes it, was 2-st 1-lbs.
In 1927 at Newbury an apprentice named Ian Martin had his first ride in public aged 10. Half a century before, Martin’s father had won the Cesarewitch going to scale at 3-st 10lbs. Percy Woodland rode his first winner aged 12 in a chase at Lingfield.
At odds with the commonsense and forward-thinking that J.F.B. usually conveyed to his readers, he was critical of the Education Act as he believed keeping boys at school until their teens was responsible for the overall lowering quality of the jockeys riding at the time he penned ‘Paddock Personalities’. He also believed that establishing what we now refer to as riding academies would never be a success as the only place a boy could learn the skills of a jockey was under the tuition of a trainer.
Of course, going to work in a racing yard as young as ten would be quite traumatic whether ‘bred on the estate’ or a north country shipyard, it must have taken on a whole different perspective if you add-on beginning your life as an apprentice in a foreign stable. Joe Thwaites was the son of a Stockton-on-Tees shipyard worker and how he ended up apprenticed to Rowland Carter in Chantilly, France, J.F.B. does not explain. Thwaites weighed only 4-stone and had to have a special saddle made for him. He returned to England after 12-months when Carter died suddenly and described his time in France as one of the happiest periods of his life. When he returned to England, because of the Education Act, he wasn’t allowed to work in a racing yard until he was fourteen. The French no doubt still had boys climbing up the inside of chimneys and working down coal-mines at the time.
Finally, J.F.B. makes the point that many ‘Donaghues (Steve), Richardes (Gordon and Cliff) and Nevetts (Billy) languished in racing stables due to a lack of opportunities as owners were always reluctant to put-up untried apprentices. J.F.B. made the point that in France at the time a ‘premium is awarded to the trainer who turns out the greatest number of winning rides in apprentice races’. This might have been the solution to the furore a few years ago when trainers in Britain were forced to share the riding fee with their apprentices when they rode for trainers other than themselves. A similar initiative would certainly give apprentices greater opportunities as well as levelling the playing-field to a degree for the trainer who cannot compete on numbers with the big yards but might accrue extra revenue targeting apprentice races. Go back in time to go forward, perhaps.