Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-02
RACE TRACK FRAUDS.
Evidence That the Public Has Been
Duped al Monmouth.
EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS sWINDLING.
How Thousands Have Been Lost on Horses
Never Out to Win.
STRINGENT MEASURES ARE DEMANDED

eIhkNUENI AEAoUhEo ALE UEMAnUEU
The action of the judges at Monmouth
Park, last Monday. was taken none too soon.
1t is 8 question If it is not already too late.
The management of this track, wherever the
management 10 centered, is sadly defective,
and has been very tardy in taking notice Of
most Questionable features that have been
pointed out repeatedly almost since the FIRST
DAY by some of the leading newspapers of
the country, at first mildly and kindly, but
now that the hints have remained unheeded,
plainly and in way that cannot help but
be needed. 1t is this almost unanimous ex-
preston of hearty disapproval of the
bad management and to say the least ques-
tionsble character of some of the doings at
Monmouth, by the dailies of the leading cities
as well as by the more reputable sport
ing journals, that has at last compelled
some action; but it would have been better
if the evils had been nipped in the bud at
the start, instead of in response to such a
vigorous public protest. To use popular
phrase there is something rotten in Den
mark" in some official quarter connected
with Monmouth Park; there is a Jonah
somewhere and the sooner he is unloaded
the better it will be for the association and
the turf in general. 1t is no mere coinci-
dence that has sent entire stables away,
kept the owners of horses that could not
afford to be beaten by trickery from allow
ing them in races, permitted q succession of
unfair starts to pass unnoticed, and made
winners OF second-class and Indifferent
horses which were not under any ordinary
conditions of fairness the equals in speed or
stamina of their competitors.
1t is since the departure for Europe of
Mr.. Cassatt the president, says the Long
Branch correspondent of the PhiIade!phia
Times, that these features have become
prominent, and it is safe to say that were he
here they would not have been allowed to
continue SO long. There is too much money
invested at Monmouth Park, and the inter-
est in having air racing there is too great,
to allow the slightest suspicion of insincere
dealing with the public to remain. The az
must be laid at the root of the tree, and Mr..
Withers, who is supposed to exercise con-
troll, owes it to himself to see that measures
are taken at once to insure complete res
toration of confidence. Ruling one poor
trainers horse and his stable boy off the
track, as in the case of Shields Camp and |
at least one of the judges is to be seen every |
night with bookmakers in Long Branch |
gambling den, and when more than one |
official of the track is known to back book |
makers, and to have been betting heavily on |
races in which poor and indifferent horses |
won, to the surprise of the public.
The Public SwiudIed.
The Little Jim episode, while probably |
the mildest of the Objectionable things that |
have happened of late at Monmouth Park,
is sufficient to show how the public is vic
timized and how bad the others must be by
Here was horse that almost |
everybody who goes to races knows popu-
lar horse that is very fast and can generally
be made to win a race against horses of his
class. He was put down on the official pro-
gramme as starter, given a weight and his
Jockeys name displayed to the assembled |
multitude, who discussed his past records
and relative chances against the other
horses. Then hundreds, probably thou
sands, bet on Little Jim. Women all over
the grandstand took bets from the uniformed
boys, and 20 odd bookmakers, under the
associations auspices and protection, put
up the odds on Little Jim and raked In the
money as offered. Then Little Jim came
out, ambled down to the starting point.
nearly got left, and came in exactly a
of a mile in the rear, while
the horses that had been fixed to
come in first and second and that every
bookmaker in the ring knew would
be first and second came in accordance to
There was not bookmaker
but knew that Little Jim was not out to
win, and the judges knew it; everybody in
and around the track and in the ring knew
but the gullible public that
just threw, its money into the bookmakers'
tills. To their friends the bookmakers were
kind enough to mention that Little Jim was
not in the race. There was such general
protest that the judges were compelled to
act, and when Jimmy Shields, the presumed
owner (though it is hard to tell who really
owns a horse at Monmouth Park, and
Camp, the stable boy who rode Little Jim,
were called up, they admitted that the horse
was only in the race "for exercise" rather
huge joke were it not SO serious. The ques-
ton that is now being asked is how many
horses have been ''out for exercise" in other
races since the meeting started Shields
seemed to think that it was all right, and it
has been all right as long as the public
stood it. but now that the public has
kicked" and says it won't stand it any
longer, something has to be done and an ex-
ample made of somebody.
Time to Call Halt.
What surprises most people is that policy
20 disastrous and short-sighted should be
persisted in SO long. Every day the attend
,nce and the interest of the meeting and
.ven the value OF the betting and other
privileges have been suffering until on
Tuesday the climax was reached when in
,ne of the races there was not S25 put up at
Ill the 20 stands, not one-tenth as much as