Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-19
RACING, BOXING
.COURSINC
and BASEBALL
SADDLE AND SULkY 9


hfat no less than 900 followers of the
turf have laid claim to the invention
of the dope as the tables showing the
positions of the field in race at vari-
Gus points of the contest is called.
The honor, if honor it be, of that dis
covery of how to know all about race
10y making map of it probably belongs
to Frank Bryan of the Journal.
Bryan has often made modest claim
to the scheme but he never insisted
upon it, and nobody outside those who
knew of the birth of the racing chart
ever gave Bryan credit for it. But
Bryan is the man who had the first no.
ton. and made the first charts that were
used in this country, and that means
the first in the world
Hi: tale in the matter is not to be
taken alone. Here is the story of it as
told by a bookmaker whose word is
good for few thousand any time he
passes it:
The chart was originated in 1888, the
year | went on the turf. 1t was down
al old Gutenberg, and your humble SER
want the first to suggest the maxi
ing of a chart on paper. There was "a
young fellow there by the name of
Bryan doing the racing for New York
paper
"One day l suggested to him to put
down the positions of the horses as they
ran IN each race to facilitate us wise
acres in guessing the winners. didn (
know then what good thing that
might be. Everybody handicapped in
those days, nobody 'doped.' The latter
word was a slang-born expression of
later days. and would have been Greek
TO better at that time.
the idea, and in the meantime l told him
l would give him a dollar a DAY for his
chart. He got six or seven other SUBJ
scribers, and was then encouraged to
hire a boy at a dollar a day to take
down the positions Of the horses as he
called them off
Bryan was successful from the word
go, not because the number of his clients
ever got very large, for outside our little
Clique there We're not many willing to
pay dollar for what racegoers now get
for a nickel. But our betting success
was immediate and large, and Bryan
was, of course, in with many of the
plays
Our advantage was something enor-
NOUS. We got prices against horses
that we had handicapped to win that
would sound like a pipe dream II I told
you OF them. Horses would be inter-
tered with, cut off and knocked back
last. and hardly any one would see it
or know anything Of it, except the form
chart subscribers.
Every one OF us made big money.
myself Quit that winter with $4,000 to
the good, and, though we all begged
Bryan to have his idea copyrighted.
there was not enough business in his
bones for that.
Bryan used to make a gelatine copy
of his work every night and give it to us
the next morning. We We're willing to
swear as to it's correctness. At that time
people who went to the races, and even
those who bet their money as bust
ness. did not begin to be as acute and
observing as they are now.
1T was not until fully a year after
the date of which 1 speak that the form
chart was first published in news
paper The New York World was the
first paper in which ever saw one, and
I think was the first publication to print
a chart, though 1 may be wrong there"
The average race-goer has no idea of
how much a part of the turf the form
chart has become. Not the wisest of the
betters is willing to do without it. 1t
is not an infrequent thing to hear the
dope" as it has come to be called.
and confiding, but there is not a book
maker nor a big better in the country
who does not have look at a horse $
performances. as shown by the chart,
before he makes selection.
The average betting man of ten years
ago never had more than a faint notion
of what horses would be first and second
p choices in a race until he got to the
track and saw the odds. Now almost
every man who is betting has "doped"
every field before he takes a race train,
and he can almost tell what prices will
be displayed about the first three picks
in any field of known performers.
Racing officials who have the govern
ing of the racing feel it every day. The
public make UP their minds as to how a
field should finish. Their conclusions
are reached after perusal of the charts
and are not without reason. So it is
that the bowls are more frequent thai.
in other days, and there is much more
talk of form reversals.
In other days, when the bookmakers
arrived at preliminary set of odds
through a laboriOus system of handi-
capping, the players took the odds dis
played as a barometer showing the con-
ditions of the race. Now the public sets
it's own odds from it's chart knowledge
and the bookmakers must take the
money that way. The public is wise to
the game" as the tout would say.
j. r. Keane & Son were not long in
replacing the late Domino, who was a,
the head of their stud farm at Castle
ton as they purchased Kingston. who
is the premier sire of 1900. The Keenes
bred Kingston and sold him as colt
During his racing career he earned
$142,562 and ranked second in the list OF
winning American horses. He was first
purchased for the stud by the Belle
Meade farm. but when General Jack.
son went to New York to pay for him
M. F. Dryer informed him he had de-
cided to race the horse another season
and the deal was declared off. Finally