Omaha daily bee., 1895-09-30
THEY WERE NERVY OLD SPORTS
Some Heavy wagers Laid by Southern
Gentlemen in Antebellum Days.
TRUE BLUES WITH LOTS OF STUFF
Horse Rnesnk wns the Favorite Oc-
%cupation and Everything Went
Old Hickory with His Tennessee
Blood Up4Trnpping n sharper.

Blood Up-Trapping n sharper.
"You youngsters perhaps think you do as
tonishing things in the way OF SPORT a vet
eran said to a New York Sun man, but take
my word for It there were men back in the
'2Os and '3Os and '40s that wouldn't turn
a hair over laying wagers that would stagger
the ~nerviest Of present day plungers. They
had true-blue sporting blood. those old fell
lows, and could no more help betting than
they could help drinking good whisky. Why,
there was my fathers father, he lost at a
single sitting every foot OF land he owned,
and it was nearly half a Carolina county.
He lost the bulk Of his negroes, fifty odd, |
think. l know he took only ten with him
when he moved across the mountains into
what was then the western country. and is
now Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.
or course he might have got out OF it IL
he had been cur enough to plead the gam
bling act, and equally, Of course, he did no
such thing.
Instead he gathered together what re-
NAMED and set to work with as good a Will
as he played. Not SO one of his friends and
boon companions. At q this man came into
the handsomest fortune in the county-5,0 900
\ acres Of the rich Roanoke river bottom lands,
stock and negroes to work 1t, and $4,000
SuuBiy at interest. 1el DelOTe he was OV the
money was gone and he had borrowed and
gambled away so much more that a sheriff
sold at one time over 200 slaves and his life
interest in the land. which was entailed. What
the sum of his debt was l don't know, but
$1,000 had been lost in one night or the
Richmond race week. He had begun by win
ming every race that day and had pushed
luck until she had turned and rent him. He
had been drinking, so had not wit enough to
stop when he began to lose. 1t went on until
he had SIC, 900 on a single hand, and when he
lost that there was no stopping him while
he had a dollar. When he at last got up from
the table he staggered a bit and never after
ward seemed the same man. He sat APP
athetically about, now in this friends house,
now In that, and though he lived to ffty-odd
he never did a stroke of work or seemed
to realize that he had a mans place in the
world.
GREAT ODDS wAGERED..
"He ard my grandfather were types of a
class that spread all over the old slave-hold-
ing states. Naturally, racing fourished, and
you can judge for yourself IL betting was
not lively when owners made matches at
$40, 900 a side. Colonel Singleton of South
Carolina and William r. johnson Of Vir-
ginia did that more than once. Singleton's
entry was Clara Fisher, and he thought moth
ing on four hoofs had leave to beat her at
four miles. johnson had much the same
opinion of his horse, Bonnets O. Blue, and
when the mare. beat him it was by such an
eyelash that he never rested till the match
was made over again, and in the last race
'Bonnets O. Blue game about as much ahead.
Then the two owners went at each other
again about other horses and got up matches
to their hearts content. Johnson took every
bet any man offered If the odds were 100 to l.
A mighty good bet, even if l lose it, he said
Of such things, One day upon a race course
there were but two entries for a race-a
saucy, blood-like bay mare and a big, lum-
bering brown gelding that had a turn of
speed and plenty Of stay. But nobody wanted
him at any price, 1t was merely a two mile
race, only a, dash for those days. The horse
was clearly 0utclassed from the start. Still
he hung on and there was some derisive
speculation as to by what margin he would
save his distance. AS the pair Of racers
swung for the second mile some one in the
crowd shouted:
"a hundred to 1 on the mare-2OO to 1!
viii anybody take even 300?"
al take you Johnson said, allowing his
way to the other. Before the money had
been covered there was a wild. dismayed
shout. The mare, going strong and free, had
struck the particular spot In the course from
which a small tree had been cut years before.
The stump had decayed, and as her foot broke
through into the hollow she plunged forward,
breaking her neck, and leaving the ungainly
gelding to gallop home at his leisure.
D you ever hear of Quartermaster's race,
which Andrew Jackson called Off because he
knew the horse was to be run to lose? The
race was to come off over the old Glover
Bottom course. some miles out of Nashville,
and not so far from the Hermitage. Quarter
master was the hottest sort of favorite. The
whole state, 1t seemed, was wild to back him.
Men put up stock. negroes, land, houses,
promissory notes, anything, indeed, that had
a market value. besides every bit of ready
cash they could by any means lay their hands
on. When the day came there was a big
place in the middle of the track, full OF all
sorts of goods and chattels, animate and in
animate.
ANDREW JACKSON'S BETS
cold Hickory was a true-blue sport. There
were many such in Tennessee then as we'll
as now. The state has blue grass even
more luxuriant than the famous Kentucky
growth, and early settlers brought to it
plenty of the best Virginia racing strains.
They brought, too, a mighty strict sense OF
turf honor. Almost at the start their jockey
club blackballed old Henry Clay-not the
statesman, but the Virginia turfman of that
name-for shipping in a famous four-miler
as an untried mountain colt, and winning
about all the money on the track that day.
But that Is a mere side light on what Old
Hickory did. With the rest he had most
likely put his money on Quartermaster, and
expected at least a soul-stirring run for
it. But the morning Of the race word came
to him secretly that the favorite had been
seen grazing for two hours in a wheat field
the night before. He had horse sense
enough to know that no racer could 30
four miles full of green, sweet, watery stun,
and you may be sure was in Il great rage
over the trick.
"He had neither time nor inclination for
complaints, Investigations and things; he
had to act at once or see his fellow citizens
beggared by a low device. He did act. Sit
ing stiff and straight in the saddle, a pistol
In each hand and other pistols In his hol-
sters, he rode up and down the throng, ours
ing and crying out that there must, there
should be, no race. In vain the trlcksters
rallied their mob Of roughs. in vain they
hooted, threatened, shouted that Jackson
had gone suddenly crazy. He carried his
point. There was no race that day, and be-
fore another carhe the r~ingsters had thought
better of it and run away. Traditions vary
as to Quartermaster One has 1t that the
horse was found dead in his stall; another
that he went on with the ~cheaters, who had
tricked his owners no less than his hackers,
and afterward won1piles of money for them
under another name.
I'm the settlement Of the south the ex-
tremes of society bore about equal part.
The poor whites went because II was and Is
their nature to be forever moving. The rich
planters went because their slaves and chill
dren were outgrowing the capacity of the
seaboard states, aud they craved the ex-
pansion of a rich virgin wilderness. A very
old man whom i knew in my youth often
told me he did inoto see a dollar in cash for
! tbraa wars affair goiDp IN TannaSsaa Nm