Samuel Chifney
British, 1753 - 1807
Person TypeIndividual
BiographySamuel Chifney was born in Norfolk in 1753 and became one of the greatest jockeys of his day. He introduced sophisticated tactics into race riding by pacing his horse to allow for a final burst of speed (known as "waiting") and controlling the animal through subtle pressure to its bit. Chifney won the Oaks Stakes at Epsom on four occasions between 1782 and 1790, and the Derby at Epsom in 1789. In the early 1780s he married the daughter of Frank Smallman, horse trainer to George, Prince of Wales (1762-1830). Along with four daughters, they had two sons: Will (1784-1862), a horse trainer, and Sam (1786-1854), a jockey. On July 14, 1790 the Prince of Wales engaged Chifney "for life to ride his running horses, at a salary of two hundred guineas a year." In 1791 the prince converted this retainer into an annuity following the scandal that abortively ended the jockey's career, when he was accused of throwing a race at Newmarket on the prince's horse, Escape. Chifney defended himself in his memoir, Genius Genuine (1795), but to little avail. In 1806 financial hardship forced him to sell the prince's annuity for £1,260. A debt of £350 incurred while developing "the Chifney bit" (a curb with two snaffles that improved bearing on the sides of a horse's mouth), resulted in confinement at Fleet prison. He died there on January 8, 1807 and is buried in St. Sepulchre's churchyard. Chifney appears in this portrait dressed in the Prince of Wales's blue body and crimson arms, astride the racehorse Baronet, a bay colt foaled in 1785 by Vertumnus out of Penultima, who was bred by James Naper Dutton, 1st Baron Sherborne, and derived his name from the title of his next owner, Sir Walter Vavasour, Bart. Purchased in 1789 by George, Prince of Wales, Baronet ran undefeated in 1791, triumphing in the Oatland Stakes at Ascot Heath (June 28, 1791), and in a series of four-mile heats: His Majesty's Plate at Winchester (July 19, 1791) and Lewes (August 4, 1791), and the King's Plate at Canterbury (August 24, 1791) and Newmarket (October 5, 1791). After selling in 1795 to William Constable of New York, Baronet sired a number of important American racehorses. His successful 1791 season was generally credited to Samuel Chifney, who appears here in the saddle, wearing the Prince of Wales's colors of blue and crimson.
