On your wall
The Jockeys and the Champions’ Record · The Jockeys
Sam Loates (Vanity Fair)
Leslie Ward ('Spy'), chromolithograph, Vanity Fair, 1896 · chromolithograph
What it is
A full-length colour caricature of the jockey Sam Loates in his racing silks, posed at an angle against Spy's plain tinted ground, the standard turn of a Vanity Fair weekly plate.
Why it matters
The Loates brothers rode as a family concern through the closing decades of the Victorian turf, and this plate is Vanity Fair's record of exactly that kind of working dynasty — a surname that meant something in the betting ring before it meant anything to art.
What to notice
the loose set of the shoulders under the silks, drawn easy rather than stiff, Spy's way of marking a man who lived in a saddle rather than a drawing room.
A surname worn like a set of colours, carried by more than one back.
Provenance
- Maker
- Leslie Ward ('Spy'), chromolithograph, Vanity Fair, 1896
- Era
- The Victorian Turf (1837–1901)
- Chapter
- The Names on the Board
- Medium
- chromolithograph
- Made
- 1896
- Figure
- Sam Loates
- Source
- Vanity Fair caricature
Publicity
Clear — the historic British turf (the Victorian jockeys, the Vanity Fair subjects): a long-deceased figure with no post-mortem right of publicity in play. Sold as history, freely and openly.
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 1.87× from the surviving 1989×3200 scan by AI enhancement (Claid smart-enhance), prepared for the considered detail of a print viewed at distance. The source record above is unchanged — the enhancement serves the wall, not the archive.
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the work’s own year of publication. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-20.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 24x36" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
The Jockey — Fred Archer
The Champion at Stride
Mr Arthur Coventry, 'The Baby' (Vanity Fair)
Lester Reiff, 'Lester' (Vanity Fair)
Elsewhere in the family
- The Links — the other morning religion.
- Painted Lineage — the bloodline, beside the family line.
- Painted Earth — home ground as a period map.