Daily AncestorHorse dealer
A horse dealer bought and sold horses for profit, a trade with a long reputation for sharp bargaining.
It was hard for a buyer to judge a horse's real worth, so horse sales gave plenty of room for dishonesty, and dealers gained a reputation for underhanded practice. Horse trading became a byword for hard bargaining, even in politics.
In older English the word jockey could also mean a horse dealer, and from that a cheat or sharp trader.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1920 census
Jas. Lacey, 45, Horse dealer
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Daily Ancestor. "Horse dealer." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/horse-dealer. Last checked 2026-10-10.