The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-06-10
OUR NEW YORK LETTER
is sLoANE'S HITHERTO MARVELLOUS
POWER AS A JOCKEY WANlNGf
The Sporting Public Looks to See Him Re
deem Himself, as He Has More Than
Once In the Past, by Series of victo-
ries Won Under Adverse Circumstances.

NEW YORK, June 81 Special Tho
admirers of Mr. James L. Sloane, probes
sionally known as Tod Sloane, are not yet
over the blue funk into which they were
thrown the other day when, mounted on
Lehman at Gravesend, he rode like an
amateur" making weird and fearlul
exhibition" which lost the race and con-
WINGED every one that lapses may be the
occasional lot even of an idoliZed popular
jockey. :,
As TO whether his III luck-some call 1t
stupidity if nothing wOrse-on that DAY
has reduced the price which he can COM
mand for his services | have not been IN
formed, but certain il is that there has
rarely been more sorrowful, disgusted
lot of men in this town or anywhere here
about than those who backed their BELIEF
on Sloane by betting on him In that race
What its loss caused temporary slump In
his prestige is unquestioned, and while, OF
course, he may eventually win his OLD
place in the hearts of racegoers by good
work in the future it may take him some
time 70 do so, and the reinstating victories
will have TO be won on relatively poor
mounts To push great horse TO the
front will not be sufficient. He must win
a few times in circumstances that would
mean failure TO most other jockeys.
Tod sloane's Perseverance,.
That he will succeed in this is not doubt
ed by those who know him best. In Justi-
fication of their faith they point to the fact
that he has got TO the front In several
races since his "weird exhibition They
also tell how few years ago after win
ming the highest reputation in the west he
came east and failed completely, yet two
or three years later regained his reputa-
ton here by winning a larger percentage
of mounts than any other jockey then rid
ing.
Sloanes mental anguish the year of his
unsuccessful attempt to place himself TO
the front among the jockeys-it was In
1892, l thinks said TO have been in
tense. He had mount after mount, only
to experience defeat after defeat. He rode
so badly at Morris park that the authori-
ties suspended him for incompetency.
But he persevercd in the face of repeated
disaster, until finally at the Monmouth
meeting he was intrustcd with seat on
the back of the big imported horse Ben
Stromc, only TO make a cOmpleter fl2zle,
if that were possible, than any that had
gone before. That failure wound up his
riding in the east that year, and he went
back to the west accounted an emphatic
failure as jockey.
New York racing men do not seem TO
know how well he succeeded in the west
in the years Immediately following his re-
treat from the east, but they agree that he
must have done "a lot of thinking and
studying, for when he came here again in
1896 his form seemed much improved. He
surely astonished certain observers, who,
banking on his previous poor work here,
bet systematically against the horses he
rode, almost to tears, for it seemed that
carpenters s/shorse might stand some
show of winning if only Sloane could be
hired TO bestride him. Much of his sue
cess that year was due 20 the advice and
counsel of George L. Smith, "Pittsburg
Phil "
This ingenious gentleman, who has
known what it is TO be down as well as up
I'm the world, put in a good deal of his
time in the winter of 1886 watching
Sloane's work in California, and was firm
ly convinced that he only needed another
eastern chance TO win "a thoroughgoing
yucCCss.