The weekly examiner., 1891-08-01
A HORSE RAGE.
An Exciting Scene on a Missouri
 Fair Ground.

They were horse men. Almost every one of them had some piece of jeweiry in the shape of a horse running or trct- ting that he wore as a Watch-charm or scarf-pin. As one drew nearer remarks could be heard about the speed of such and such a horse, pedigrees were discussed and fine points argued. Some especially fine event upon the race-track would call forth exclamations of admiration, and chairs were drawn closer together as ex- citing contests of speed were being re- lated. One of the party who had taken deep interest in a graphic description of memorable turf event at the con clusion of it remarked:
 .sThat's the stuff You fellows that sit in the grand-stand and watch race think it is exciting, don't you? Well, it is. I speak from experience. Q, yes; rode when I was kid. That was in '66. and we didn't always have a nice mile-track to ride on. We usually. just guessed the distance if it was a long race, and paced it off if it was a short one. No boolxmakers then, and there were seldom more than two starters. The stakes were even up.
 'sWe would run any thing from hum dred-yard pony race to two-mile stretch, and even farther if necessary. That was after the war was supposed to be over, but bless you it was going on in that country some time after wards We had string of eight head of horses to run with, and they were beaters every time. We were doing southern Missouri, Kansas and Nebras- ka- Although they were not thickly settled, no railroads there, and very limited telegraph service, there were enough dead game sports to make it Interesting, and if fellow had horse that he thought was 8 winner and he was just itching to try his speed for anything almost pistols, saddles, horse for horse, or money-an he had to do was to get out on the prairie and declare himself and some body-some- times a white man and sometimes an Andian-would either trot out of the hazel brush or spring up from the prairie grass and accept the challenge. It was surprising where they all came from They would run for any thing even wager part of their clothing
 ..Well, as I said before, we had eight horses and they were thorough bred Kentucky racers at that. You see my old man kind of hankered to mingle in the slight unpleasantness that was just over. He was not my own father adopted me when [ was four-year- old.
 ssAt the close of the trouble down south he bought horses and started down into Missouri You see he just wanted excitement. He took me with him and want to say we got what we were looking for. We fitted up at St. Louis, got a big wagon and camp out 6t and the party consisted of the old man, three St. Louis gam blers, two ne groes, four draft horses, eight racers, me and a bulldog. was nearly twelve years old at that time. We started overland, for the railroad only ran as liar as Sedalia then. We headed for Springfield. A few incidents in the way of short races for small stakes oc- curred on the way, hardly worth mem tioning, though. I was doing the riding. We arrived in Springfield after a journey of ten or twelve days and there we did strike pudding.
 < 'sAt that time there was a garrison of union soldiers near there. Every body seemed to be able to rake up a little money to bet on horse race. We quartered the horses, negroes and bull- dog in a livery stable on the public square and ensconced ourselves very comfortably at the Lyon house, then the heading hotel of the town. Then the old man made few remarks publicly that were calculated to lead the citizens to infer that he believed he had some horses that could outrun anything in thoSe parts and he emphasized his re- marks by exhibiting some long green that was branded with the fiat of the United States of America. Now just at that time there happened to be a horse down there called Honest Bob. He had succeeded in beating everything that had started against him and his owner considered him invincible. His opinion was backed by dollars usually and his neighbors were perfectly will hing to furnish any amount that he needed to make up a purse as large as anyone might desire to run for. Bob's distance was a mile. This being the situation you can readily believe that the governor did pot have to daunt his igreenbacks very long before finding a tal1er. The race was made, the terms agreed upon and money put up. The distance to be run was two miles.
 ssThese conditions were insisted upon by the old man because he knew Bob was very fast for mile. The animal we put up against him was four-year- old mare. She was awful speedy for any distance, but two miles was her specially, and she was @ world beater, I firmly believe. We had two weeks to train in. Everybody was interested. Eand men, women and even children were talking about the coming event. The packers of Honest Bob gathered in knots about the public square and whispered to each other that it was al- most like a confidence game to take bets against him. The terms of the race demanded that it should be run on a certain day, rain or shine, no post Eponement, or money should be fort feited by the owner of the horse failing