WE HAVE MUCH TO THANK THE YANKS FOR.

​I have no fondness for America in general and their horse racing in particular. I dislike the dirt-tracks they race on. I dislike the regular use of Lasix and other drugs. I dislike the preference for speed over stamina. I dislike the almost mandatory use of blinkers and I am unsporting enough to dislike them coming over here and winning at Royal Ascot. So you can understand why it grates on me to have to admit to my ignorance in being unaware how much they improved the care of racehorses in this country, and how a class of Americans changed the way jockeys in this country, and doubtless the world, rode.
Up to, perhaps, the start of the 2nd World War, horses were invariably stabled behind closed doors, with no fresh air for ventilation. Also, they would be exercised, even on the gallops, in heavy clothing, trainers believing sweating to be good for them. Such arrangements made for bad tempered horses, even savage ones. We have to thank the ‘invasion’ of American trainers such as Wishard, Joyner and especially Huggins, who trained a large string owned by a Mr.Lorillard and who won the Derby in 1879 with Iroquois, for this improvement in animal care. The Americans looked on traditional British stabling with bemusement and despair and immediately dispensed with the full stable door, replacing them with what we term ‘the stable door’, leaving the top half always open.
In his book ‘Men and Horses I Have Known’, George Lambton wrote that it was a common sight on Newmarket Heath to see loose horses running amok, and if two ‘savage’ horses came together people might witness something akin to a dual to the death. He wrote of two such horses who ran themselves to exhaustion across the Heath, fighting whenever one or the other stopped. By the time Lambton started training he reported that because of the husbandry the Americans brought with them such frightening scenes were unknown.
The American jockey Tod Sloan was the revolutionary who changed riding styles forever in this country. His ‘monkey-up-a-stick’ style was scorned when it was first witnessed by racegoers and even George Lambton thought it bizarre. I suppose when you are brought up with the upright position in the saddle and long leathers, the seat adopted by all horseman, any new ‘fad’ will be considered laughable. Lambton soon learned his lesson and when his stable jockey Fred Rickaby replied to the question ‘what do you think of Sloan?’, he said with all honesty. ‘If I were an owner I should not run a horse unless Sloan rode it,’ the die was cast. In time, when Rickaby retired, Lambton employed the American Danny Maher as his stable jockey.
The ‘monkey-up-a-stick’ style came from what the Americans termed ‘up-country’ race meetings where horses were often ridden on the track by, and this is a term Lambton used’ ‘nigger boys’ who could not afford a saddle and rode with just a strip of blanket over their mount’s backs, holding on to the mane for balance. Huggins used to send horses to these ‘up country’ meetings and would buy any horse that beat his runners believing he was sure to improve them with better food and training. It was when ‘a darkie’ insisted he go with one of these horses that he bought and he saw for himself how much better they would perform in a gallop with ‘the darkie’ on top than one of his regular riders that Huggins recognised he had found a way of gaining an edge over his rivals.
What the Americans also brought to this country was something altogether more unsavoury – doping. In Lambton’s time it was not illegal to dope a horse, which is rather surprising, although it was frowned upon, especially by those trainers regularly beaten by those who did to resort to doping. Cocaine was the dope of choice, used as a liquid. The American trainer Wishard was the chief doper and won the Royal Hunt Cup and Stewards Cup with a horse called Royal Flush who improved leaps and bounds once he had got to work on him.
Apparently, you could always tell a horse that had been doped because it would sweat profusely and would be as mad as an ox for hours or perhaps days after a race. What was interesting is that cocaine only really helped a moderate horse, as when used on a really good horse it would be so lit up it would burn itself out long before the finish, but the moderate horse would be given the energy and fight that without the dope it generally lacked.
To prove to the stewards that doping was taking place and was detrimental to racing, and to get them to do something to stop it, he doped several horses of his own, informing the stewards and allowing them to monitor the improvement dope brought to horses he couldn’t ordinarily win with. So, if we remember George Lambton for nothing else, he should be remembered for his insightful role in the instigation of the doping rules.
When, and I doubt if it is ‘if’, Wesley Ward has his customary winner at Royal Ascot this week, I shall have to praise the achievement as for one thing is for sure, his horses will win on merit, not win on dope.