sam's reminiscences.

​Sam Darling was born in 1852 in Moreton-in-Marsh and died in 1921, I assume in Wiltshire. He didn’t mention his death in ‘Sam Darling’s Reminiscences’, the omission accounted for by him having not yet died.
For a memoir of a successful racehorse trainer, Sam’s book is light on many aspects of his experiences on the racecourse. Mainly, to my intense disappointment, as I read such books to feed my impoverished brain with useful turf facts, half the book is taken up with his holidays abroad, with even the final chapter, ‘Home Details’, reading  as if his publisher said to him ‘embarrassed by your family, Sam, are you?’, and his retirement from Beckhampton, now the home and training yard of Roger Charlton, and building Willonyx House on one of the two farms he owned. And ‘boasting’ of all his successes at farm shows with his sheep and cattle.
I only have the ‘cheaper version’ of the book. Visit Way’s bookshop in Newmarket and you could avail yourself of a far grander edition of the book for the not inconsiderable price of £425. In the cheaper edition there are only 5 illustrations in ‘Photogravure’ and 4 in ‘half-tone’, whilst in the grander edition, original cost 21-shillings (ask your grandfather to explain shillings, though in racing terms 21-shillings equates to a guinea, again, ask your grandfather) there are 8 photogravures and no less than 42 half-tone illustrations. The words contained in the grand edition remain, I suspect, the same as in the cheaper version.
Sam Darling was a man steeped in racing history, with his father and grandfather before him a jockey and trainer, and Sam junior followed in his footsteps, as his own son Fred continued the family line of succession, taking over Beckhampton from his father and being equally successful. The Darlings may hold the world record for the number of winners trained by a racing dynasty. You will have to ask John Randall of the Racing Post for a definitive answer.
In Chapter 1, ‘Early Days’, it is established that Sam is connected to Lord Westbury and he writes about old Sam Darling, a term that I dare say Fred used to refer to Sam, his father. That is the problem with naming the first-born after the Christian name of the father, the second after an uncle and so on. Not as embarrassing as the tradition in some parts of Ireland where one of the sons has as a secondary Christian name the name of his grandmother. I know of one well-known Irish, though domiciled in England, trainer whose second name is Mary.
Sam Darling’s (of the Reminiscences) grandfather rode 4 Chester Cup winners and rode in all one year 76-winners from 176 mounts, ‘and that before there were many railways’. To get to meetings he would ride a hack, his saddle slung round his back. He won the St.Leger in 1833 on Rockingham. The Darlings go way back into racing history, almost into folklore. If only there were a Darling name now to carry on the succession.
Sam (of the Reminiscences) knew the Archer family and on being asked where young Fred should go to begin his career as a jockey, Sam recommended Mathew Dawson in Newmarket. ‘This was highly satisfactory, as history proves’.
There are, I admit, insights and useful historical fact in this book, I just found it irritating that a man so steeped in facing folklore, with an antecedence that trails back to when horse racing was primarily match races for the entertainment of the landed gentry, filled so much of the only book he published with tales of his holidays in Egypt, South Africa and elsewhere. Also, and don’t tell anyone ‘woke’ or they’ll have Sam’s body dug-up to witness a burning of all the known copies of his book, but he uses the ‘N’ word on several occasions when referring to ‘niggers’. Even I, someone appalled by all forms of censorship and someone with no racist thought and who treats all faiths and religions with equal distain, couldn’t help but be a little offended. Different times, different time.
This, as you might have gathered, is far from my favourite racing book, though being over a hundred-years old it adds flavour and value to my library.
Oh, I should add, almost in a similar vein as Sam Darling mentioned it, he won the Epsom Derby with Galtee Moor and Ard Patrick and back in those dark days our good horses were being sold as stallions abroad, including Derby winners. Good to know, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.