The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-23
BANASTER WAS THE IDOL
Everybody Picked Him for the
Suburban Winner.
HOW IMP DID THE TRICK
An Expert Turf Writer Enters Into
Detailed Explanation of How the
Thing Happened-Systemo of
Starting at Fault.

| The Suburban run at Sheepshead
| Bay Saturday, was race ON which
| much money changed hands in Butte,
as well as in other cities where they
| play the books" H. L. Marshall, a
writer in the New York Telegraph,
| says that the race needs more explain
| ing than description and that the
many people who lost money on Ban
astar without getting a run for their
money are entitled to more consider
alton than the few who chose Imp for
the winner. Continuing, the writer
| says that there is absolutely no rea-
| son to detract one jot or little from the
glory and the credit of Imp's great VIC
tory, but in the course of a proper
| consideration of the supposedly BAN
! ner contest of the year, it becomes
| necessary in this instance to suDor-
| dinate the winner to the loser. And that
| is why this story will be built around
| Banastar, rather than Imp as its head
| and center
Banastar was the idol of the day-the
| idol OF such a crowd as no track in
| this country has seen in many year
| before The old timers will tell you it
| was not so big a crowd as was seen
at Sheepshead Bay in the Ekwood
| year, but they are the ones that al
| ways live in the past and have no
unbiased view of the present.
The most moderate of figures place
| the throng at $4,000 and it is more
| than likely it was much nearer 10000.
/ 1t was a typical Suburban multitude,
| in which every rank and grade, every
| class and caste, of the cosmopolitan
population of the metropolis was rep
| resented. The young and the old, the
| wise and the foolish, the white and
| the black, the fat and the lean, the
! politician and the poll clerk, the lady
| and the maid, rich man, poor man,
| besgar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, mer-
chant, chief-the pharsee and the pub
| lican, the baldhead and the soubrette,
| the upstairs girl and the downstairs
| girl, Dives and Lazarus, the butcher,
| the baker, the iceman and the milk
| man, and so on, innumerab1e.
All were there, and nine out OF
| every 10 of them We're there with
single minded purpose, to worship at
| the shrine of Banastar, to have bet
| on him. to show their wisdom by back
ing the right horse, to have few eX-
| ira dollars to spend at the week end,
and, over and above all, to be able
to say to their neighbors this morn
| ing, II told you So
There is one thing it is impossible
| to explain-how the tip on Banastar
| became so widespread and overWhelm-
ing. 1t swept everything before it.
| Everybody had heard it and every body
| wanted to take advantage of it. There
was nothing but Banastar to be heard
| all over the great race track-in the
| sacred precincts of the club house, in
| every tier of the grand stand, on the
| lawn, in the free field, the betting
| ring and the paddock. In every nook
and corner and Granny, the one word
| was Banastar, and not even Raceland,
the most pronounced favorite that ever
| before went to the post in a Suburban,
was such universal choice as was
| former Corporation Counsel Clark's
colt. Even the regulars, the men who
are usually set in their opinions, those
| who went to Sheepshead Bay deter
mined to bet on some other horse in
the race, were carried away by the
Banastar flood and We're swept into the
betting ring to place their dollars on
| him.
Few gave thought that Mr.. Clark
was starting another colt, Candle
black, in the race, and that he, too,
might have a chance. The one reli-
ance of the great assemblage was on
Banastar, already winner of the Brook
lyn Handicap, and primed to be in
| scroled as the winner of a Suburban,
too. Mr.. Clark himself had added to
their confidence by declaring to win
with Banastar, and nearly every
| newspaper in New York had selected
him to win. The presence of Candle
black as a starter added but little
value to the strength of the entry in
the popular mind. for the dependence
of all was on Banastar first, last and
all the time.
Given the great crowd and given
the universal determination to bet on
| a single horse it is little wonder the
| ha JlS N ry c
| as low as 9 to l, and when the book
| makers had registered as much of the
| torrents of gold and greenbacks as
they possibly could, the price had
dropped to to 5.
The pandemonium of that betting
ring is something beyond description.
| so there shall be no effort of describ-
ing here. beyond the single statement
that no man short of a Hercules could
force his way through it. from one
stand to another. The best a man
| could do was to get into a current of
| other helpless ones and be shuffled
| along till he came to bookmaker
| ready to take his outstretched money.
There was no such thing as going
from one to another, seeking a better
| price, for lucky, indeed, was the man
that could get his bet down at all.
| Here, as everywhere else, Banastar
was the whole spirit of the occasion.
| There We're some fleeing murmurs of
Imp and Bannockburn and Briar
| Sweet, Ben Holiday and a few of the
| others, but the great cry was always
| for the favorite. Both Imp and Ban
| nockburn had a few steadfast sup
porters. strong minded men, who could
hold out against the prevailing mad
| ness but they were an unimportant
| minority. Then there was a small
Briar Sweet party and a few stray bets
on Ben Holiday, the champion of
/ other years. A comparison. of the
| opening and closing quotations shows
| that there must have been some play
| on Warrenton, George Keene and
Lason, but it was absurdly unimpor-
| tant. Under ordinary circumstances,
| it might have been of some moment,
but 1t was too quickly swallowed up in
| the Banastar deluge to have any per-
ceptible effect
a volume could be written of the