The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-12-17
NOTIONS OF SOME HORSES.
TEMPERfWEN IDIOSYNCRA-
 SEES TO RECKON WITH.

oLED 4 v lLEthON WIIH.
 Racer That Preliminary Revel In
 Bad Cigar Smoke Always Nerved to
 Get to the Front-FamiIy That Hated
 Sugar Horse Once Long Sick That
 Feared Draughts-some Other Pecu-
 liar Horses.
 A party of turfmen were talking, on the in-trp from the Bennings track the other afternoon, about the tempera- mental idiosyncrasies of race-horses. The conversation hinged on the perfor- mances of the notorious old sulking horse Monk Wayman now racing at New Orleans. The Monk declines to try yard in a race unless aroused by the beating of tin pans and the racket made by scores of giant rattles in the hands of stablemen strung around the infeld on the baek-stretch. Then he jumps like a Hindoo and nearly always wins.
 Some race-horses that I've handled" said a veteran trainer, "have been as capricious as some over-praised prima donnaS of the comic opera stage I've heard of I'm not referring now to the devil horses and the man eaters. l never would have any truck with that kind of race-horse. I've had a few of them in my barn for short periods, but l always got rid of them if I had to give them away. I never saw a natu- Uioin11C rona-hnrca tbot T would trust behind a ten-cent piece turned edgewise. They've got the memories and the vindictiveness of ele- plants, which is saying a heap, from what I've heard from elephant men, A naturally ugly race-horse Is like one of those Malays that we read about, that's due to run amuck a few times before he cashes in. You never can know when he's going to hand you yours One of the most devilish biting and clawing two-year-olds that I ever met up with became as mild and amiable as Newfoundland puppy, as a three and four-year-old. When he got to be five he almost chewed the arms off two sta- ble boys, kicked a rubber in the chest so that the man died of consumption in less than three months, stamped a stable goat to death-and all decent and right-minded horses are fond of goats as you know-and finally jumped a fence and deliberately com mitted suicide. That is to say, he was idiotic enough to charge upon a huge Holstein bull in the lot into which he leaped, and very properly got himself gored into short ribbons
 But many race-horses whose na- lures are not in the least mean or grabbed have got kinky little ways about them. They have their likes and dislikes, just as we do. It is curious how some of them are marked by their dams. I had a shifty Ally in my string about fifteen years ago that showed polished pair of heels to a lot of the best of them in her day. This filly couldn't bear the sight, smell nor taste of sugar. Her conduct when I offered her a couple of Jumps of loaf sugar for the first time was very pe- culiar I was trying to coddle her for winning me a tidy little stake, but at the very sight of the sugar her eyes stuck out red and inf1amed, she made a bellows of her nostrils, she danced
  tually swung her head violently from side to side, as much as to say, No; take that stuff out of my sight She certainly did act queer, considering how fond nearly all horses are of sugar. Once in while, for three years after that, offered the mare loaf sugar, but she always acted in the same way. The very sight of it got her into a father. It was probably a little kink that had been planted in her by one of her more or less remote progenitors. Well, she went into the stud, and she sent me a colt to the eastern races a few years later-a pretty good colt he was, too. When he got out of the maiden class at his first try, I attempt ed to do the right thing by giving him a bit of a loaf sugar ration. He took this just as hard of me as his dam had before him, and went on just like her over the sight of the sugar-worse, in stall and worked himself into a shiver and a father in no time, and it took me long time to soothe him. My experi- ences with that good mare and her good colt certainly helped to clinch my firm belief in the hereditary transmission of temporal traits among animals as well as among human beings.
 ''Race-horses, as a rule, are as sus- ceptible to draughts and to the colds that ensue therefrom as bald-headed men, but not all of them are wise enough to understand when a draught is blowing upon them I had one, though, that understood all right. He'd had bad cold followed by lung trouble, as three-year-o -old, and I had a job pulling him through-had to nurse him like baby, and he stood 16.2 without his plates. When brought him around at last he was the sorest critter, four or two-legged on the draught question that I ever had any doings with If a stable hand would leave door open so that there'd be draught on the the old chap, he'd begin to paw and stamp and whinny and set up a, dickens of a racket until somebody came along and closed the door, whereupon he'd immediately qui- ct down and go on munchlng. If mo- body happened to be around to close the door that let in the draught, he would yank and tug at his halter, and If he succeeded in getting loose break