In the 1890s the world of racing was turned on its ear by a young American who rode horses as no professional jockey had ever ridden: Tod Sloan hitched up his stirrups and thrust his weight far forward. Traditionalists laughed at first and dismissed him as a novelty, but as he came to dominate racing on both sides of the Atlantic, his style of riding became widely imitated, and his famous “forward seat” remains universally practiced to this day. Sloan’s place in racing lore and popular culture was cemented in 1904 when George M. Cohan wrote and starred in Little Johnny Jones, a Broadway musical based on Sloan’s rise and fall in England.
John Dizikes’s portrait of Sloan (1874–1933) shows a small-town, hard-luck, midwestern boy who became an overnight sensation and an international celebrity in a world of breeders, bookmakers, gamblers, hustlers, bluebloods, and princes. As the King of Jockeys in the sport of kings, Sloan lived in high style, until he was banned from British racing and forced to eke out a living on the margins of the sport for thirty years.
