ABSTRACT
Jacket Although blouses are now worn, jacket is still commonly used to refer to a jockey’s silks. The first attestation in this sense is from 1856, in a description of Sam Chifney in ‘the magnificent “purple jacket with scarlet sleeves, and gold-braid buttons” of the Prince.’ Phrases like ‘retain his jacket’ and ‘send in his jacket’ were used to describe a stable’s employment or sacking of a jockey. ‘Jacket’ goes back to the Old French jaque, ‘thought by some to be identical with the proper name Jacques, perhaps as originally worn by the peasantry’; and since jockey has connections with Jock and Jack, it seems that the two words were made for each other.
