Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1896-10-09
GENTRY'S GREAT MILE.

record. set by John II. Gentry, Sept. 24,
1896 at 2:OO5. If "old Two Minutes"
and Gentry had been racing down toward
the wire together O. +. NJ. would have
been at his girth. People addicted to
such things and habits have figured that
when "A horse is going at a stated rate of
speed he compasses so many feet every
second. and this perhaps is true; for
does he not go so many feet in the time
made? But let any one take from his
pocket his stop-watch, start it up and
then try to impress his mind with the
perceptiblity of the duration of one-half
second and he will have mighty hard
time of it. Why, he will barely have
time to start the watch agOlng, let alone
to stop it again. y good stop-watch can
be started and stopped in half second
so as to register the time correctly but
that is all. Consequently to show how
little stands between Gentry and the two
minute goal it is only necessary to point
out these things. Half a second looks
quite thing on paper, but it is desper
ately small on the face of stop watch.
When the timers note down the official
records-that is. note the time made by
the first and second horses in a race
they allow the second one quarter of a
second if he is Just beaten. If he is back
half length they give him the half
second. 1t all came about in this wise.
As exploited previously in The Ga
zette, record-breaking has become fash
onable in the East-has quite deserted
the West in fact-and when the big
Rigby meeting was coming on the man
agement made arrangements to have
Fantasy, Robert j., Gentry and Star
Pointer 90 against their marks. The day
was not a good one. The course was
not at its best. deluge of rain not hav-
ing been sufficiently dried out to make
the soil perfect for fast going and the
best Fantasy could do when she tried
early in the afternoon was } :O1I in a
well-rated mile. The wind blew hard
against the horses on the last turn and
coming into the stretch, which made the
third quarter and the first part of the
fourth the slow bits in the mile. a beg
carly crowd of some twelve hundred
people came out to see the sport, and
not even Andrews unbounded enthus-
asm and confidence in his horse to re-
duce the mark of , ;0l4 he took some
weeks ago could serve to liven up affairs.
The day, moreover, was Just chilly
enough to take of the wire edge, so that
there really were some drawbacks,
though the weather could not have been
frightfully bad. Perhaps the state of
the track and the wind were the worst
features. but as the afternoon wore on
these drawbacks were materially
lessened. Gentry got strong exercise
during the afternoon. After giving a
slow mile and rubbing him out Andrews
set out with him to the half in :O24, let
him come slow on the turn and then sent
him the last quarter in fiat 30 seconds.
Finally the little red horse was brought
out for his great effort. Andrews sent
him up and down the stretch at pace
that made the canny New Englander
open their eyes and at last nodded for
the word and away went the PAGER. As
he sped past the quarter the watches
clicked OIL % at the half they said 594
first two quarters within the limit
The wind then began to get in its fine
work, but the PAGER calamity breasted il
and when he got to the three quarters in
l 1901 people began to think that the
record was really going to be broken
Halfway down the stretch, when the
wind was gotten well abeam, Andrews
/ began to drive like a man possessed. He
used every scheme known to his craft
/ and Gentry rushed under the wire holder
of the worlds pacing record ;004-thC
last quarter having been traversed ii
30l seconds. The finish must have beer
at the rate of about quarter in y
seconds, for the first part of that last 44C
yards was certainly not any faster thar
81 gait. The cut of full second was
too great for the people not to know
that the record had been broken even be
fore the official figures were hung out
and the good folks swarmed all over tn,
track, poked the horse in the ribs, triet
to tear pieces from his blanket-in shOr
it was some minutes before a blue-cOatet
mnion of the law could clear a way 70
the hero of the hour to get back to tn
stand. Verify it was a great mile. Ant
that is the history of It's pacing.
NouII no% eIeon-pur