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(1) Rattles:
From a newspaper clipping dated 30 August 1935 found on this blog written by a former apprentice jockey.
“Having found a rattle a successful means of urging the racehorse Ballyscanlon to victory in races, the trainer H. Hedges instructed a jockey to use similar persuasion with another horse, Speed On. Questioning the legality of the use of a rattle the stewards at Folkestone, where Speed On won, submitted the case to the Jockey Club, which has decided that rattles must not be used instead of whips.
The rattle has been returned to Hedges, who attaches great sentimental value to it.”
I’m wondering if anyone reading this has a father or grandfather, approximate age 100, who remembers something about this rattle, or any other rattles that might have been in use around that time. I’m particularly interested in the design of the implement i.e. did it look like a football rattle, a baby’s rattle, or what.
(2) Spurs:
Does anyone know when jockeys were prohibited from wearing spurs. All I have to go on is Brown Jack’s sixth victory in the Queen Alexandra Stakes in 1934 for which Steve Donoghue wore spurs (but didn’t use them).
Thanks.
This post is dedicated to the countless TRF members who have been on tenterhooks for the past 7 years, hoping against hope that one day there would be a breakthrough in the subject of rattles in racing.
In the case of Ballyscanlon the rattle was described variously as, ‘an old condensed milk tin filled with stones and tied on to a stick’ and ‘an old metal polish tin filled with small stones’ attached to the end of the whip.
Speed On’s persuader consisted of, ‘a small tin containing a marble’, which is a bit of a comedown in rattle technology to my untutored eye. It’s surely beyond dispute that the audio quality achieved via the marble/small tin ensemble would be significantly diminished in comparison with that of Ballyscanlon’s stones/milk tin combination.
Here’s a picture of H.Hedges with Ballyscanlon and a rattle.
https://www.imago-images.com/sp/0008521464
Facts courtesy of ‘Ashforth’s Curiosities of Horse Racing’.
I have a vague recollection that during the mid 80s Steve Smith-Eccles (or might have been John Francome) wore spurs into the paddock where he was due to ride The Somac which I think was a grey fast ground chaser trained by John Jenkins, that often wore blinkers and tended to race lazily.
Upon spotting this the Stewards took a dim view and the spurs were duly removed. Whether he had previously used them on that horse without it being noticed I’m not sure. Can anyone with Chasers & Hurdlers from that era check this?
Spurs became essentially useless for racing after the forward seat and later the crouching seat was adopted and stirrups brought so far up that the feet could not come in direct contact with the horse’s side.
It was likely a gradual reduction of use as riders switched styles rather than an all-out ban, at least at first. In the US past the 19th century spurs were noted as added equipment (like blinkers). By the 1920s they were vanishingly rare and had completely disappeared from flat racing in the 1930s. They probably stuck around longer in jumps racing where the riders’ position is not quite as extreme.
As for the rattles, the one used for Ballyscanlon looks like a DIY version of those used to herd cattle https://slscompanyinc.com/product/rattle-paddles/ Try saying “cattle rattle paddle” 3 times fast.
The current BHA rule on spurs proscribes the use of same.
Unsurprisingly the ruling body fails to mention when they were banned. It could be they gradually fell out of use when the riders’ stirrups rose so high that spurs were superfluous, as per Miss Woodford’s comments above, and they were banned as a kind of afterthought following an incident such as that described by Salut A Toi.
British racing owes much to the American jockeys who came over here circa 1900 and showed us how to most effectively ride a racehorse. The strike rates of such as Sloan, Maher, Martin, and the Reiff brothers to mention but a few, was astonishing in comparison with that of home-based jockeys in that era.
The last well-known jockey to ride long in my limited knowledge of race-riding was Paddy Broderick of Night Nurse fame. I’m probably wrong, though.
This thread gives great hope to anyone who has posted a new topic only to see it cascade down the page into oblivion while it goes unanswered.
Some interesting replies above. Another device that I have heard mention of is the brush pricker, which was used to attempt to dissuade horses from veering to one side.
Can anyone shed any more light on this device e.g. are they ever still used in racing now? And just how prickly is the pricker?! If spurs are banned on humane grounds, it strikes me as odd that a pricker would be allowed.
Looking forward to a reply in 2029
Brush prickers (or bit burrs in US English) are still used and still legal. The key difference between them and the illegal methods is that there is no action taken on the jockey’s part. It’s no different than a martingale acting on a horse who raises his head too high. The bristles aren’t sharp at all by the way, they’re like a stiff grooming brush. There are also versions with rubber spikes like a curry comb.
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