Turf Monthly

JIM PIKE

Herald (Melbourne, Vic.: 1861 - 1954), Monday 20 April 1936, page 23

Things I Have Never Told by Jim Pike

TRAINERS -AS THE JOCKEY SEES THEM

When Jim Pike Broke His Rule In Using Whip

In this instalment of his life story, Jim Pike tells some intimate things about his association with Australia’s great trainers.

A great bettor put him on a horse who wouldn't do his best for previous jockeys. How he broke his rule about the use of the whip, and gave the horse a hiding, and its effect, are told in this intriguing chapter of his career.

The "Boss," Mr Kelso, was always a man o£ great enterprise who thought no project too much bother if he calculated that to take a horse to the smallest meeting would make his racing transactions pay. "Little fish are sweet,” he I used to say, and you would see him taking horses to races in Brisbane or Melbourne, or to small meetings on the Northern line.

But he was a great judge, and if he had to take short odds, he would still know that he was getting fair value to his money to make the trip pay. In the old days he must have won hundreds of races in this way with horses that other trainers wouldn't be bothered about. I have seen him take poor performers and poor lookers to the bigger meetings in Melbourne or Brisbane, too, and people would criticise him for troubling with such horses, but invariably they won races for him. That he could get horses fit too for the greater events of the Turf was obvious from results.

Great Triumph

HE won his Derbies with Beverage, St Leger with Millieme, and too many two-year-old classics to mention. Then

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