With the event known as the “Run for the Roses” scheduled for to-morrow, Mrs Daffodil yields the floor to that perpetual ray of sunshine over at Haunted Ohio, who shares the thrilling story of
A JOCKEY’S GHOST.
He Re-visits the Stables at the Race Course Where the Man was Killed.
“A dispatch from Rochester, N.Y., dated August 19th, to the Indianapolis News says;”
Some years ago, in a running race at Detroit, Danny Mackin, a jockey, was killed by the horse he was riding making a sudden and vicious bolt and hurling his rider to the ground. When the jockey was picked up a stream of blood was running from a hole in his temple down his cheek and neck, A story has been current among jockeys and stablemen ever since Mackin’s death that his ghost walks at night among race-track stables, the quest of the spectre being presumably the horse that killed the jockey. This story has always been believed by stablemen, and if any ever had any doubt of it they are dispelled now, for the ghost itself was seen by at least a dozen of them at the Washington Driving Park stables one night recently.
The midnight watch of stablemen had come on duty, and the men were lounging in front of the stables, when one of them saw a slim figure in white approaching the stables from a clump of trees on the grounds. The man called the attention of his companions to the object. They all saw it clearly as it glided noiselessly towards the stable. When the apparition came full in the light of the large hanging lamp in the front of the stable and revealed the figure, clad in jockey garb and a face as white as the clothes, with a red streak running from the right temple, down the cheek and neck, like a line of blood trickling down, the stablemen were paralysed with fear. The spectre jockey passed into the stable through the open door. The door leading to the stalls where the racers were was closed, but the ghost kept right on, passed through the door as if it had been opened, and disappeared. One of the stablemen recovered himself sufficiently to think that perhaps this might be a clever trick of some one to get at the horses to do them harm, and he hurried forward and opened the door leading to the stalls, with the intention of preventing any such purpose. Two or three of his companions followed him. The apparition was moving slowly along the stall, stopping an instant at each one and then passing on to the next. The horses seemed to be aware of the mysterious presence. They neighed and plunged and stamped in their stalls as the spectre passed along.
The stablemen were again paralysed by this second vision of the jockey ghost, and stood motionless and speechless at the door. The apparition glided to and paused at every stall in the stable, turned its face for a moment toward the three terror-stricken men in the door, and disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. That they had seen the wandering ghost of poor Danny Mackin not one stableman of the midnight watch has the shadow of a doubt.
Oakland [CA] Tribune 17 September 1890: p. 1
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil does not like to spoil a thrilling yarn, but despite the best efforts of some of the finest scholars of the historical paranormal, the strict veracity of this story has not been confirmed. There are many stories of jockeys dying during races, but to date no actual trace of poor Danny Mackin’s existence, let alone death, has come to light. The fact that the horse and the Detroit racing venue are not named and that various syndications of the tale name Rochester Driving Park rather than Washington Driving Park as the location of the ghost’s walk, suggests that this may be a Victorian “urban legend” rather than the exact truth. Alternately, a prankster may have been at work—ghost-impersonators were a perennial nineteenth-century problem. Still, if true, the story begs the question: What revenge was the phantom jockey prepared to take—indeed, what revenge could a disembodied spirit take—upon the horse that killed him?
Other supernatural tales of the race-track: The Jockey Wore Crape, and Hunches and Hearses at the Racetrack.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Mrs Daffodil Digresses 