Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-10-30
tWritten for the Herald
Horse Tretting.
RnrLASn. oct. %. 1873.

all yuor trOttfn8 meetings. during the
summer, learning in that time. more
about your ways of doing business than
/ ever hoped to know of the same kind
anywhere. If you will permit me to:say
one or two words, i will try to show you
some facts that may do you good for
next year !. -s,......,
I. Trotting is. going down IN the State
so fast and so deeply that in one or two
more years no man not connected with
it win ever be seen on a track. The
people like trotting just as well as ever,
but they cannot stand your ways. H
2, This state of things is due to the
fact that you are not honest.on the track
or off it. There is no use mincing mat
tiers you Cor many of you) are not hon
est and do not trot your races fairly.
There are many exceptions, of course,
but still altogether too many will lie and
steal and be guilty of foul play to get
first money without lettering your rec
ord. .'--..--..s,. .,--ss,. ..t.-.. III
You DO not appreciate the necessity Of
having good and fair judges. In too
many cases you put set ofmen into the
stand with the understanding that they
shall give the time only so fast-no mat
ter what is made. I have been in the
stand repeatedly this year, when the
men acting as judges would announce
the time in a heat from one to four sec
onds slower than the watch showed it.
This is nothing more nor less than
swindling For instance, you trot in a
2:40 purse and make 2:37 in one heat
The judges, under instructions from
somebody, give the record as 2:4oi. Isn't
that cheat on the next person you en-
ter a 2:40 race with !? Are you not
stealing his money If you win it -? be
cause your horse had no business in. that
race at all after he had beaten $40 I
have seen judges bet on race which
they presided over s........
Now, gentleman, if you want to save
trotting in this State, you must stop this
at once you must put fair men in the
stand, aud be prepared to be kicked
down stairs if you ask them to lie for
you. :-.-,-.. '..<
/ have seen, this year, plenty of foul
driving plenty of running; plenty of
bargains between drivers plenty of
pulling back to let horses inside the dis
lance but I have not seen a board of
judges with sufficient courage to punish
a driver, further than to changehis place
in a single heat excepting, only, at the
State fair, where a driver was ruled off
the track for pulling his horse back. to
let another one win the money How
much of a punishment was that +? He
could come back again as soon as those
judges had done serving. ......s '-.. ~
This brings me to the remedy for all
this. It is simple enough Make your
associations members of the National
Association and be bound by their rules
Don't take their rules TO see how you
can get around them, but make up your
mind to live up to them. Let your
drivers expect to be ruled off all the
tracks of the association if they buy or
sell a race, or if they abuse he Judges
for doing their duty. No driver cares
for being set back for foul driving, but
they will be pretty careful if they know
they are liable to, be excluded from near
ly every track in the United States,
Then you viii have to keep a record of
time made which can be produced to
keep horses in their proper classes.
Another thing that you err in is in
having so many small meetings with
trifiing purses, They defeat their own
ends, One goodmeetiDg in each county,
ur on each track, or in each section Of
the State, would draw ten times as many
people as three OF. four q season, each Of
small importance. People will noteome
from q distance to see little tr0ts where
the result is settled beforehand and
where the time is not allowed to come
inside certain figure. no matter how
fast the horses tr0t. l an not in. general
an advocate of importing horses to trot,
yet a good meeting here son the square
would pays and if Goldsmith Maid and
Fullerton were to trot, you would get
more people here than have attended
any five. meetings this summer. The
is not necessary; but the
perfect fairness of proceedings is. .
I noticed in the Globe the other morning
some remarks going to show that pool
selling is hurting trotting. Now you
know and I know that pool-selling has
no more effect or influence on trot-
ting than it has on the spread of the He
brew language. 1t keeps no one away
from trots; buta the same time it should
not be SO prominent as it often is. Give
the bookseller all the room he wants,
but keep him away from the grand
stand, and out of hearing Of it if posi-
bic. ........ ....--...~.- ~
These things that have recommend.
ed you to do are what have made racing
(or running) SO popular. The New
York Jockey Club, the Nashville Blood
Horse Association, the Memphis Run
ming Club, the Louisville Racing Club,
and others have been very prosperous in
this way viz: they have kept their
meetings free from suspicion. You can
DO the same, To be sure you have not
the Population to make meeting like
Buffalo, Kalamazoo, Chicago, or Mil
w:aukee; but you can get and keep just
rs good a reputation for fairness as they.
You can't do it by a repetition of your
past experience, however. ~, ~. &,
Mr.. BoBBLEs.-
Feminine Personals. r..
-. A Cr.3An.