![]() Reuben Bedford Walker III is black (a “noble Ebon,” in his own characteristically purple phraseology), “the best rider you’ll ever see on the skin of a horse,” and the possessor, like the author C. The Mephistopheles figure in “The Sport of Kings,” a novel that abounds with Faustian characters and dangerous learning, is a jockey himself. It was my introduction to the widespread delusion that jockeys, with their compact bodies and wizened and secretive faces, are in league with the Devil in this most devilish of games. ![]() I was new to the track and was startled by the horseplayer’s choice of words. “I hope the sweatbox pops you like a chili bean and refries you to hell, you Cuban devil,” someone yelled. The jockey who had lost on the favorite was named Delgado. ![]() The first time I saw a horse trainer “steal” a race - by shipping a horse more talented than it looked in its past performance chart to a track far from home and cashing a bet on it - I was standing at the rail when a crowd of angry bettors turned not on the trainer but on the (this time) blameless jockeys. ![]()
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