James "Jim" Daly
JAMAICA PIE 1943
CHAPTER VI STUDY IN BLACK
If one were sending a child to whom a name meant nothing to find him anywhere in the stand enclosure on the Kingston Race Course you would have told that child to look for a slenderly built man of medium height dressed in a light grey suit, bright red tie, and black “billy-cock” hat, set well back on a head cropped as close as the barber could contrive it, short of actually shaving the poll, and with the whitest and most perfectly dazzling teeth laughing happily from the blackest and shiniest face ever seen. With such directions no one could possibly miss finding Jim Daly of Porus, one of our earliest black Justices of the Peace and the proud owner of a small but terribly efficient racing stable.
In those days racing was not the complicated thing it is today and those who know (like my friend Mr. Eugene DaCosta) will understand exactly what I mean.
The racing authority was the Kingston Race Stand Ltd., who owned the stand and leased the Kingston track, and their activities were centered on giving good sport to the public and a fair dividend to the shareholders.
Jim Daly’s string, as I have said, was small but efficient. At first there was Barkwood, famous son of the unbeatable Candlewood. He was sufficient to himself. Then came Tender and True, and Mafeking. Mafeking, a close-set stocky chestnut, had the peculiarity of a stubborn temper that usually dissuaded him from doing his best, then as if deciding to show what he could do, if he really set his mind to it, he would exceed himself on the last of the three-day December meeting, and usually pull off two firsts.
