[See -SHIP.]
1. a. The art of a jockey; skill in horse-racing. (Cf. horsemanship.) b. The practice of jockeying; trickery, artifice, adroit management for unfair advantage.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Ess. Envy, Wks. 1764, II. 111. To vie in jockey-ship or cunning at a bett.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 276. We justly boast At least superior jockeyship, and claim The honours of the turf as all our own.
1787. Bentham, Def. Usury, ix. 87. Jockey-ship, a term of reproach … frequently applied to the arts of those who sell horses.
1846. J. W. Croker, in C. Papers, 22 Aug. (1884). Newmarket does not afford more … instances of jockeyship, than could be found in the secret history of episcopal promotion.
1894. Daily News, 16 April, 3/7. This defeat was probably due to the inferior jockeyship of his rider.
2. As a mock title for a jockey.
1781. Cowper, Conversat., 420. If neither horse nor groom affect the squire, Where can at last his jockeyship retire?
3. Jockeys collectively.
c. 1820. Chalmers, Serm. The full assembled jockeyship of half a province muster together.
