The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-12-02
RED DONNELLY'S STREAK
A YICTIM OF LADY FORTUNES
WINS At ST. LOUIS.

He Began with a Nickel at the Race
track, and When Ills winnings Start
ed He Couldn't Lose at Any Game-Bu
What He Won Went Even Nor
Quickly.
Washington, Nov. ga party o
turfmen down here for the Bennint
meeting were talking the other evening
of the remarkable streak of luck whlcf
has enabled Billy Barrick to run Dor
rowed shoestring Of 5000 up to al
amount which is now said to approx
mate 100000 in the last six weeks.
'Barricks double-ended luck, both a,
faro bank and horses" said one of the
bookmakers in the party, lis whole
lot out of the common Luck is full
bred sort of an affair, and it does not
often run along hybrid lines. What |
mean to say is that the man who has
large run of luck at one game and
goes to pieces when he switches to an
other game. The luckiest man l ever
knew on the turf for example, were the
unluckiest card players, and most of
3pONs
thousands of their pony winnings be-
fore they found this out. Barrick seems
to be an exception. He has got into
the current and he could get away with
the money at fan-tan of Cingalese pool
while he's in his present shape. I'm a
bit afraid Of him just now myself, and
when / see his commissioners bearing
down on my book I'm sorely tempted
49, I'll %o r ont a
chance to rubber-neck and find out what
they're after. If l were dealing faro
bank, so weird has his luck at tiger
bucking lately, too, that l believe I'd
make it thirty-cent limit when l saw
him coming But he's an exception, as
/ say. It's the man who sticks to the
game that drives the swaggerest dog
cart and wears the whitest gig-lamps
in the long run.
I remember a chap out In st. Louis
who ran shoestring of five cents up
to pretty close to six figures in the sum-
mer of 1895. He bucked more games in
doing it, too, than Barrick has thus far,
but he couldn't DO a route, and they ate
him up when the whiskey got into his
head in such quantities that he saw
treble without having focus on any
thing. His name was Red Donnelly,
and he had charge of the bookmakers'
paraphernalia in the betting ring of the
st. Louis fair grounds when the Lady
Fortune beamed upon that nickel OF his
and invited him to bask for time in
her domain. He was loose-jointed
spraddle-shaped sort of young chap OF
Is or so who had been hanging around
the st. Louis tracks from his early boy
hood He learned so much about the
horses that he could never win anything
on them when he played in the ten-cent
books made by the railbirds He handi-
capped them down to the sixteenth of
pound, and the horse that he put his
dime on consequently got beaten, as
rule, by tongue. He had been holding
down the job of dog-robber for the
bookmakere for two seasons before he
struck his lead on that nickel. He came
out to the track one day, early in June, |
1895, with the solitary nickel reposing |
in the depths OF his trousers pockets, |
sailed there to pay his fare back to the |
city. He got to pulling the five cent |
piece out Of his clothes and looking at |
it longingly by the time the first race
was due. He wanted to get down on /
race, but there We're no five-cent !
books. The bottom sum accepted by the
rail-birde was dime. Red strolled out |
to the barns and got to pitching nick
els with pack of idle stable boys. The
luck was with him from the jump, and
when he accumulated dollar in nick
els he exhibited symptoms of man
suffering from chllblains His reason
for getting cold feet was that he had a
good thing in the fourth race, and by
the time he had acquired the dollar the
betting had begun on the fourth race.
RED hurtled himself in to the ring
with his dollar and saw that the price
offered against his good thing the old
nag Hush was go to /. Donnelly needed
a bundle of cigarettes and a few drinks
pretty badly, but he was game when it
came to sticking to his good things and
he slapped his twenty niokels down ON
hush with a bookmaker he knew He
took goodnaturedly the knocking boot
which the booky gave him for handing |
in twenty pieces of that kind of metal,
and, catapulted himself out to the rail
lust as the horses went away from the
post The race was really something
silly for Hush, in the unwleidy field Of
nineteen horses Hush led all the way
and pranced under the wire first In a {
big gallOp, pulleQ QouDle lHe Doy Hdu
Hush in his lap all the way.
Red had some difficulty in collecting I
lis s61 The bookmaker knew him we'll, 6
Snew of his taste for rum, and knew al
70 that few of Reds rare dollars ever {
'ound their way to the humble shack (
If the mans infirm old Irish mother.
Il believe I'll just pinch this out on q
,ou Red said the boolly to bin, and t
PASS it along to the old lady when | 60
n tonight 1t won't do you any good r
Come to taw,' replied Red I want
o put thirty or forty cents down on the h
,ext race. / got another good thing in t
t.
1.-THE boolxmaker reluctantly passed Il
the S61. Red carefully folded
he dollar bill and tucked it into his
vaistcoat pocket. Then he invested the n
SO, in $40 clips, with six books, on Dor n
h Wood, in the next race, at Is to /. o.
{ was a canter for Dorah Wood, and q
led knocked the bookmakers silly-they
II knew him well from his working d
round the place-by seeking it to them 81
Or $3.50 each. A committee of safety w
,as Immediately formed around Don M
~, I,,,+ l,o couldn't he held down He |