THE FORGOTTEN JOCKEY

SPREOTY

Degas’s fascination with racing is well known. It is estimated that he produced over three hundred paintings, pastels, sketches and sculptures of racing scenes, jockeys and horses, such as ‘Cavaliers sous la pluie’, ‘Jockeys avant le départ’, ‘Sur la piste de la course’ and ‘Chevaux de course dans un champ’. After his death in September 1917 many works were removed from his apartment in the Boulevard de Clichy, his last address in Paris. It was believed that all his existing works had been catalogued.

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In 1859 Degas had his studio in the Rue de Laval- nowadays this is called the Rue Victor-Massé. A street of four or five storeyed apartment buildings, it was close to the centre of the city and near Montmartre and the Rue des Martyrs. When renovation work was being carried out at number thirty-seven a few years ago workmen discovered an old antique pine travelling trunk from Alsace. It still had the original polychrome painting on the outside. The trunk contained various items- dresses, a hand-written diary and several paintings which were wrapped in an old Fleur-de-Lys patterned chabraque (saddle-blanket). The foreman of the gang doing the work contacted the authorities and eventually someone came to take the chest away. It was thought to have belonged to the last known tenant of the upper floor of the building, who was deceased. Because of the antiquity of the chest- the manufacturer’s name on it was from the mid-nineteenth century- someone from ‘La Musée des Objets Trouvés’ was finally sent to study the contents.

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Horse racing had become popular in France in the early years of the nineteenth century, the popularity spilling over from England where ‘the sport of Kings’ had been established for some time. The ‘Société d’Encouragement’, which was the beginnings of the French Jockey Club, was formed in 1833. There were a handful of Englishmen on that first committee, including Lord Henry Seymour, who was the first President of the Club. In 1863 their headquarters were established at the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines and Rue Scribe. Near Paris there were race courses at Chantilly, the Bois de Boulogne and the Champ de Mars.

In the early history of horse racing there have been many great horses- for example Eclipse, Pot-8-Os, Highflyer, Regulus and Bay Middleton.

There have been many famous owners- in France there were Achille Fould, Count Frédéric de Lagrange, Count de Cars, Count de Morny, Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild, Auguste Lupin, Madame Latache de Fay, Prince Marc de Beauvau and the brothers Eugène and Alexandre Aumont (succeeded by his son Paul).

Many of the early trainers in France were Englishmen- for example Thomas Carter, Tom Jennings, Mr. Boldrick and Thomas Cunningham.

Jockeys were likewise brought over from England, riders such as Nat Flatman (Champion Jockey from 1840 to 1852), Charles Pratt and Arthur Watkins.

The popular imagination is fascinated by such superlatives as ‘the greatest’, ‘the fastest’ and ‘the biggest’ or ‘the best’. Each generation proclaims its champion as superior to all those who have gone before. Anglers forever pose with the large fish they have caught, be they tuna, bass or salmon. Champion hard-boiled egg eaters smile from their hospital beds. The scarred palms of boomerang catchers are exhibited for posterity in photographs on the walls of drinking holes in the outback of Australia. ‘The Guinness Book of Records’ solemnly lists those who have consumed intolerable quantities of spaghetti or sprats; or those who have danced innumerable fandangos in packed telephone kiosks on Clapham Common. Statues are erected to hula hoop champions (complete with mobile hoop). If it can be done, or ought to be done, or was never thought do-able, or shouldn’t be done (on any day of the week or month of the year), then there’s a record for it. Weevils spinning on a weather vane; Nuns eating nougat: just try it, we’ll record it!

In the annals of French horse-racing one diminutive figure stands supreme. The most well-known French jockey racing in France from the early 1840s until his death was Jack Spreoty. Edmond About in ‘Maître Pierre’ wrote: ‘Spreoty est le premier jockey du monde, il n’y a pas à discuter là- dessus. Je ne veux pas médire de Watkins, ni de Wells, ni de Mann, ni de Carter, ni de Pratt ; mais campez-moi Spreoty, à cheval sur une canne, avec des poids tout le long du corps ; il partira au petit galop, sans se presser ; il laissera prendre la corde à tout le monde ; mais au dernier tour, hurrah ! il fera tant des éperons, de la cravache et de tout, qu’il gagnera d’une pomme de canne, pour le moins.’(p 207 f)

Spreoty’s list of successes is impressive. He won L’Omnium Handicap at Chantilly three times (in 1843 on Lanterne, in 1844 on Error, and in 1847 on Tomate). He won the Prix d’Aumale at Chantilly three times (on Saint Martin in 1844, on Scamper in 1845 and on Error in 1846). He won the Prix de Diane (for 3 year old fillies) five times (on Serenade in 1848, Hervine in 1851, Dame D’Honneur in 1856, Mme de Chantilly in 1857 and Étoile Du Nord in 1858). He won the Prix Gladiateur (for 4 year old and older thoroughbreds) five times (on Hervine in 1852, Echelle in 1853, Royal Quand Même in 1854, Monarque in 1857 and Mon Étoile in 1862). He won the Prix du Cadran (for 4 year old and older thoroughbreds) three times (on La Cloture in 1851, on Hervine in 1852 and on Monarque in 1856). In 1852 on ‘Porthos’ Spreoty won the Prix du Jockey Club (the equivalent of the English Derby) at Chantilly. He also won this race in 1855 on ‘Monarque’. In 1859 at Versailles he won Le Prix de Satory on Phare. In 1860 at Baden- Baden he won the Pries von Baden on Mon Étoile. In 1863 at Limoges he won the Prix Imperial on Orphelin, which that same year came second to Alerte in the Prix du Cadran. Late in his career at Bois de Boulogne in 1881 he won the Grand Prix de l’Impératrice on Mon Étoile. He became a trainer for Paul Aumont, though he seems to have been less successful in this capacity.

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Others at the time and since have won more races, have had longer careers, or have spent spells in prison. But Spreoty’s uniqueness lay in this: ‘he’ was a woman. The truth is known to us now because of the contents of that recently discovered chest. This fact was concealed from his contemporaries throughout his lifetime. One of her few public appearances as herself (though using an assumed name) was to attend the opening night of Florimond Hervé’s now lost Operetta “Hippodamia and Pirithous’ at the ‘Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiennes’. She was escorted by Apollinie Sabatier.

The diary is Spreoty’s and quotations from it have been used extensively in the recently published biography of the jockey by Jules Perceval (a writer rapidly making a name for himself in the field of obscure nineteenth century figures). Éditions Mensonge is to be congratulated for their superb production of this work.

The paintings have been authenticated by M. Toiser of the Académie des Beaux-Arts as the work of Degas, who is mentioned throughout the diaries when Spreoty was sitting for him. There are portraits of Spreoty the jockey in the silks of M. Aumont (casaque verte and toque blanche) and the Prince de Beauvau (casaque rouge and toque rouge). There is also one of her in one of the dresses found in the trunk. It is of rich red satin with laced short sleeves over a linen chemise. There are elaborate details at the bottom part of the skirt. She wears a pointed hat with one curved feather, has on long gloves and holds a delicate umbrella. Around her neck is a simple necklace and she wears short, tasselled earrings. The illustration was found- unattributed both as regards the painter and the lady depicted- in an edition of ‘Journal des Demoiselles’ in 1861.

There have been many well-known “cross-dressers” throughout French history. Perhaps the most famous is the country’s patron saint, Joan of Arc. She was burnt at the stake by an envious church as much for daring to wear men’s clothes as her supposed heresy. Julie d’Aubigny (who died in 1707) was popularly known as ‘Le Maupin’. She was a swords-woman and opera singer, upon whom Théophile Gautier based the character ‘Madeleine de Maupin’ in his 1835 novel. The diplomat and soldier Chevalier d’Eon, who died in 1810 of a surfeit of names, was another cross-dressing woman. Jeanne Baré (an expert botanist) disguised herself as a man and was the assistant and valet to Philibert Commerçon the official botanist on Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition (1766-1769). Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupont was better known as the nineteenth century writer George Sand who outraged society by dressing as a man and had affairs with both sexes. She was rumoured to occasionally frequent the stables at La Morlaye. Rosa Bonheur was a nineteenth century lesbian artist who legally wore men’s clothing for her painting purposes. Her favourite brush stroke was said to be scumbling or the vigorous vertical.

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‘La seule personne qui connaît la vérité sur moi est Degas, car il a peint me nu à ma toilette,’ she writes in her diary. Degas had done many paintings of women washing themselves- ‘La Toilette’ (1884/5), ‘Après le bain, femme s’essuyant la nuque’ (1898), ‘Femme assise sur le rebord d’une baignoire et s’épongeant le cou’ (1880) and so on- but the woman in these paintings is muscular and athletic. The face is slightly averted though the features are unmistakable those of Spreoty. The setting of the bathing scene is a countryside pool or stream. In the distant background is an unsaddled horse. The saddle, with ornate pommel, lies beside a tree which shelters the bathing spot.

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No matter how successful you were the life of a jockey was a hard one. The crowds might cheer you as you reached the post and entered the unsaddling enclosure in triumph, but a jockey was only one step up from the stable lads. It was the owner who held the trophy. Once the jockey had done his job he would fade into the background. Society was still stratified into ranks and class based on birth as much as on wealth. Most jockeys had to constantly battle to keep their weight down and many were alcoholics. Several died tragically- Charles Carroll was killed at Musselburgh in 1867 when his horse fell; Henry Grimshaw was killed on his way home from a race meeting when the trap he was riding in was overturned. To the spectator their life may have seemed privileged and exotic as they rushed past like squadrons of colourful birds, but the reality was different.

Spreoty lived this perilous life and had to keep the secret of her gender. In the diary she describes the bawdiness of the changing room and the earthy talk of her fellows. Somehow she managed to remain distant and not part of that world. When the racing season was over she would disappear to a retreat in the countryside where she could enjoy her life as a woman.

We get no hint that she had any lover or paramour, of either sex. Her great love was for the horses she rode and later trained. Even though the horse might have lost- for though he could bring out the best in any horse Spreoty could not transform its basic nature- he would still pat it with affection and then give it the trademark kiss on the nose which the spectators waited to witness.

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The diary covers only a brief part of her life and career as a jockey. During this period Spreoty was at the height of his fame. There are allusions to her years growing up in Normandy. Thus:

‘I like nothing more than to be on the back of a horse. Somehow I feel incomplete when it is just me. Perhaps I should have been a Centaurides! When I ride I want to merge with the beast I am astride, not to tame it but to release it. I have this gift- I have always had it since I was a child- of being able to communicate with any horse, by touch and by thought. They welcome me for that brief time that I am perched on their back. As we circle the track I can see through their eyes; I can feel the rhythm and strength of their muscles as they gallop. I add nothing to them; yet without me they say they too are incomplete! Their sex does not matter; neither does mine. What matters is the fusion of beings, of souls if you like. I know that I can never find anything like this with another of my kind, whether male or female. In such a union lies only servitude. I desire freedom not the bridle. Even that freedom as I ride is restrained by the saddle and bridle on the horse. My free-est moments, moments of true rapture and reverie, were when as a child I rode à cru [without a saddle- J.P.] on Bienor. My hands were clutching the mane and we galloped over fields. Bienor was the first horse I ever rode. Papa thought it had bolted with me on its back; but I was laughing with delight when we returned to the yard! Relieved he had not scolded her but had reached me down as I prattled on about the joy of the ride I had had. Dear old horse! No one else wished to ride her because she was old and unattractive compared to all the other mares and stallions in the stables…’

«Je n'aime rien plus que d'être sur le dos d'un cheval. D'une certaine façon je me sens incomplète quand il est juste moi. Peut-être que j'aurais été un Centaurides! Lorsque je roule, je veux fusionner avec la bête Je suis à cheval, de ne pas l'apprivoiser, mais pour le libérer. J'ai ce don, je l'ai toujours eu depuis que je suis un enfant de pouvoir communiquer avec n'importe quel cheval, par le toucher et par la pensée. Ils me souhaiter la bienvenue à cette courte période que je suis perché sur le dos. Comme nous le cercle de la piste, je peux voir à travers leurs yeux, je peux sentir le rythme et la force de leurs muscles comme ils galopent. Je n'ajoute rien à leur disposition; mais sans moi, ils disent qu'ils sont trop incomplets! Leur sexe n'a pas d'importance, pas plus que la mienne. Ce qui importe est la fusion des êtres, des âmes si vous voulez. Je sais que je ne trouve jamais rien de semblable avec un autre de mon espèce, mâle ou femelle. Dans une telle union ne se trouve qu'à la servitude. Je veux la liberté n'est pas la bride. Même que la liberté que je roule est retenue par la bride et la selle sur le cheval. Mes moments libres, des moments de ravissement véritable et à la rêverie, ont été quand, enfant, je montais à cru sur Bienor. Mes mains étaient serrant la crinière et nous au galop sur les champs. Bienor a été le premier cheval que je n’ai jamais roulé. Papa pensait avoir boulonné avec moi sur son dos, mais je riais de joie quand nous sommes retournés à la cour! Soulagé, il ne l'avait pas grondé mais m'avait atteint vers le bas comme je l'ai bavardait sur la joie de la course j'avais eu. Cher vieux cheval! Personne d'autre ne voulait la monter, car elle était vieille et peu attrayants par rapport à tous les autres juments et des étalons dans les écuries... "

We do not read about her declining years when younger men would be favoured with the better horses by the stable. Despite the fewer successes that came his way Spreoty retained the support of the Aumont family, though he also rode for other owners in order to make a living. The crowd still loved him and cheered him whatever the result, recognising his genuine passion for the sport.

Spreoty died in Chantilly on February 27^th 1885. There is only a brief mention of this in ‘Le Figaro’ the following day which reads : ‘ Il a succombe hier à cinq heures et demie à une maladie qui ne laissait plus d’espoir depuis quelques jours.’ Neither ‘La Presse’ nor ‘Journal des Débats’ carried any notice of the death of France’s greatest jockey. The passing, however, of notables such as M. A. Grand’homme (one time Secretary of the ‘Société d’Encouragement’), Baron Sainte-Aure d’Estreillo (who under the pseudonym of Ned Pearson was a sports writer and supporter of ‘Le Sport’), Baron de Bray (owner of the stud farm at Montgeroult) and the financier E. Balensi during this same year were well reported.

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Later that year in May Victor Hugo died. Amongst his papers was found the draft of a story about horse-racing on which he had been working.

‘Spreoty never used the whip, though he would carry one like every other jockey. His relationship with the horse precluded such brutality. When he rode he seemed to become one with his steed, balanced delicately in the high stirrups and leaning on to the galloping beast’s neck almost as though he were whispering encouragement in its ears. There were times when, in the finishing straight, he seemed like a lover urging the other to ecstasy. When the race was over, whether he had won or not, his eyes would be glowing and sweat gleaming on his face, like a saint in rapture.’ (Victor Hugo ‘La Course de la Reine Blanche’-unpublished)

«Spreoty jamais utilisé la cravache, mais il serait porter une comme tous les autres jockeys. Sa relation avec le cheval empêché une telle brutalité. Quand il montait, il semblait ne faire qu’un avec son cheval, équilibrée délicatement dans les étriers de haut et, se penchant sur le cou de la bête au galop presque comme s’il chuchotait des encouragements à ses oreilles. Il y avait des moments où, dans la dernière ligne droite, il semblait comme un amant exhortant les autres à l’extase. Lorsque la course était terminée, s’il avait gagné ou pas, ses yeux étaient lumineux et la sueur brillait sur son visage, comme un saint en extase. »

R.L.Paige ©2010