Amongst the most important matters which a body of owners coming together for the protection of its interests can take in hand is the jockey question. Despite all that has been done the jockey is still the master of the situation; and this is bad for racing. A position in which the jockey dictates the terms is an intolerable one, but that is the position in which the Turf finds itself. It is not a new state of things by any means. The “It’s no use asking me what will win; go and ask that long-legged devil,” of Matt. Dawson could be paraphrased to-day, though the question of dishonesty is not being trenched upon here. What owners have to consider is, whether the relative positions existing between owner and jockey are those of master and man, and whether the reward given the jockey is not altogether out of disproportion to the service rendered. The enormous issues that are at times at stake, and the fatal power for good or evil that is given into the hands of the jockey, as forming the last link in a chain every other link of which has been forged with scrupulous care and disregard of cost, are what give the jockey his advantage. And this advantage he will always hold so long as he is allowed to feel his power, and not made to understand that there is a master mind over him. If the hard truth has to be told, the master mind is what is lacking. By slow stages at first and then rapid ones, we have passed from the times when the jockey stood humbly upon the mat awaiting the pleasure of his lordship, to a day when it is the owner who metaphorically stands upon the mat. To put the matter in a few words, the jockey is enabled to make an income that is not only far too large to be good for him, especially when we consider the lowly station from which he usually springs, but, in addition, is immeasurably in excess of his deserts. Clearing ourselves of the glamour of custom, it must appear plain that it is a ridiculous thing to give a jockey, say, £500 for winning a race, even be it the Derby. How can a jockey ride worth £500? Only on the supposition that if he is not able to anticipate some such guerdon of victory he will not put in his best work and so possibly lose the race; in which case he will be a dishonest jockey and should be dealt with in a totally different manner. The writer does not hesitate to put it on paper that there is no reason why a jockey should be paid more for winning the Derby than for winning any other race, for the simple reason that it is just as easy to win; and we do not have to go back many years to find a jockey who rode an indifferent race, but won through the merit of his horse, rewarded in a manner that would have been extravagant had he performed some prodigy of horsemanship and snatched the race out of the fire by its means. The thing is so glaringly disproportionate, that one is driven to assume that the giving of large presents to jockeys for winning certain races is done out of deference to a custom, the courage to disregard which is lacking. So much is the thing overdone, that one almost comes to applaud instances in which an entirely diametrical course has been pursued, in which the suggestion of parsimony in the case of meritorious riding has been braved.