Evening star., 1898-11-05

| SIN1 Nf\\ San FranciSco-a r
| Mw//--N stabbed at the track
| conditioning them
" ~ selves for the run
ming ahead Horse
men and horse followers. e.. men who
| make business of Chasing the circuit"
| and picking 'em''-are already seen in
| numbers around the downtown hotels
Ihey arrive early in order, by daily visits
| at the track, to get line on how the
| horses are working" At night they get
| together in the MOTEL corridors and COM
pare the results of these preliminary OBJ
| servatfons at the track This horse had
worked mile in .42 fiat today" and was
not, when the meeting began to be over
| looked in any company" That fily had
done six furlongs in .16A, just rompns
| easy and ought to win any race in which
! she was entered at the meeting Just buck
| jumping" So-and-so's old six-year-old skate
was in surprising form, and had gone the
| mile-and-a- half route in 2.40Iz. with plenty
in hand at the pull-up." Such -and-such's
meal ticket of a four -year-old selling platter
| pleW up in mild mile canter, and didn't
look like he could beat steam roller at
/ this meeting
| A lot of this sort of talk is now in the air
| in the rotundas and cafes of the hostelries
| patronized by the followers of "the ponies"
and the Washington men, young and old,
| who get down town O. nights are swallow
| ing more or less of the predictions accord
| ing to the degree of their credulty, thus
| laying the foundation for dismal "upsets"
| when the racing begins. For the ante
| ing talk of horsemen and horse followers is
| about as weighty shaving lather and as
prophetic as campaign literature. The own
| ers of strings are particularly optimistic
in their anticpations, and each of them has
! already-in his dreams-gobbled up all of
| the purses and stakes to be run off at the
! melting. The perennial cheerfulness, the
\ oil yyiSt FIJI
| peering into the future of most men who
| follow the heart-breakng, soul-shriveling
| game of horse racing excite the wonder, If
| not the admiration, of the mere plodder.
A Good Racing Town.
Washington is considered a good racing
| town, and interest in the horse-running
, sport seems to grow here from year to
! year. OF what is called sporting blood"
there appears, to judge from the usually
| large attendance at the spring and fall
| running meetings, plenty in this neigh
! borhood, and what the horsemen call ''edu
| Gated money"-that is. the wagers of bet
| tors who have the know" to an extent
| that enables them to put down their money
at long prices on horses at just the right
| time-is said to abound to unusual ex-
| tent in this neck o the woods. The horse
| men, in commenting upon the cleverness
4 of Washington bettors' in picking rank
| outsiders that win, point to the numerous
| well backed good things that gen.
| orally pulled off at the meetings here.
| That the judgment of the mass of race at
| tendants here is just as good as that of
| any community where racing goes on seven
| months in the year, is shown by the per-
| centage table of favorites that have won
| here at most of the meetings in the past.
| For the man who has attained that high
! degree Of philosophic self-controi which
permits of his attending races without feel
| ing any desire to bet on the results {and
| there may be one man in a hundred thous-
| and built that way) there will be plenty of
| material for interesting study when the
racing at Benning begins. The man who
! bets Oh the horses doesn't take much no.
| tice Of anything that goes on around him.
| He is too much absorbed in figuring out
! how he is going to beat the card But
that race man who spends an afternoon at
| the track Just to EN- rum and to
| smile over the cavorting of his fellows has
! the bulk of the fun at the race meeting,
| and his fun Is good deal less expensive,
| too.
| Methods Of the Tout.
! The racing tout gets in his persuasive
/ work at the meetings down here, just
| he does everywhere else, despite the watch
| fulness of the Pinkerton men. The tout is
| q shrewd student of faces, and he always
| picks out for victim man whose counte-
| nance doesn't indicate any great amount
| of decisiveness of character. Such a man,
| although he may never have seen him be-
| fore. he insinuatngly plucks by the sleeve
| just before a race and begins TO mold into
the belief that such and such a horse Just
| can't lose. The victim may humble some
| thing about having heard all that kind o.
| talk before and been dumped on it, but the
tout is a patient and scientific coaxer.
| and he generally lands the man who will
| listen to him at all. The victim, for exam
| pie. is disposed to play the favorite and
| tells the tout So
| tout, scornfuiiy. why, say, iook-a-here.
| he's yaller dog. He couldn't run me
grandmother to a nose finish in an all-aged,
1 four-mile race, with only SO pounds up,
| He's quitter, with streak of yellow IN
| him as broad as steamer trunk, and he
chucks every race he gets in when be does
| fve furlongs. He can't run no more'n a
| cook stove. Won three straight races at
Morris Park? OF course he did.-from q
| lot @ maiden twenty-year-olds! And all
| three fiukes at that 1 saw EN- run. You
| just put your money down on Hickory Jim,
| at 20 to /, and if you don't win out l smoke
| a pipe for the rest of the year. see? just
| let me have your coin. and I'll get 25 to i
| for you"-and if the victim is something
| easy" he hands the tout the amount of the
bet he intends to make on the race. The
l tout rushes fer bookmaker's station-os-
| tensibly rushes, that is-away off at the far
corner of the betting ring, but he only
makes a biuff at getting into the line of
| waiting bettors, and when he rushes back
to his easy mark he has s1ngiy tucked
| away in lis pocket the money that has been
handed to him to put down on Hickory
Jim. at % to L. horse, as the tout knows
without even outside chance to win the
| race. The tout of course. takes e. chance
about 80 per cent in his favor-on the horse
/ he has picked winning the race, and when
Hickory Jim comes streeling In rank las.
| he looks rueful and tells his victim that
| there much be something the matter with
| the horse" or che was pulled" or "he
wasn't out to win today, maybe" or some
| thing equally weak. If Hickory Jim should
happen to win the race the tout would of
course, have to run for it, but occurrences
| like this are rarer than angels visits This
| kind of racing tout is only one kind of the
| large species. The commonest OF the other
types is the tout who induces his victim to
| play horse that he really thinks VIII win, |
and who collects a good proportion of the
winnings n case his Solerf ion ia s,1ccoSsPul