Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-18
THE BIG WINNERS

eff any racing friend of mine would dare
to name race horse after me. I'd do the
best knew how to brain him with a mai
let" said an olJ-time turfman, one of the
advance guard here with string for the
Bennmg meeting las a general thing
take very small amount of stock in hoo
doc tales, but 1 surely believe that the man
VINO has a thoroughbred race horse named
after him is hooded from the very day
Of the equine christening. I've got dozen
such instances in mind. Out in Cincinnati
for example, 1 recently came across a
prominent Ohio man who is almost topping
on the verge of ruin owing to his plunges
for several years past on a horse that
foolish friend named after him. -Four years
ago this man was a big factor in Cincinnati
politics. and he had a manufacturing bust
ness that raked him in an income of some
thing like 100000 per annun1. He had never
visited a race track in his life unit! one day
he accompanied one OF his business asso-
ciates, an eX-nayor of Cincinnati, to a sale
of thoroughbred yearlings held in The pad
dock Of the old Latonia course. His friend
bought at this sale a likely looking yearling
by famous sire and dam. and on the I'M
pulse of the moment named the colt after
his companion.
When the horse was first sent to the post
as two-year-old the Cincinnati man after
whom he was named made his first visit to
the races. and he has been an incessant
race track fiend ever since. The colt that
was chrstened after him was a coriNer in
his tWo-year-old form, winning two out OF
every three of the races in which ne was
entered and the Cincinnati man won tens
of thousands of dollars in bets uron him.
The infatuation of the race tracks in the
meantime grew upon him, and he developed
into plunger of the most reckless sort. He
lost more than he won out on his nick
named two-year-old in betting on ether
events, and he neglected his business sadly
in order to crafty his passion for the race
tracks. When the horses were not running
on the Cincinnati tracks he would repair to
Chicago for weeks at a stretch to attend the
races, and the rapidity with which he lost
his grasp upon his business and political
interests, in spite of all the warnings of his
friends, was sin.
THE two-year-oid named after him that
started him on his reckless course proved
to be a sorry disappointment as three
year-old, but the Cincinnati man was so
stubbornly confident of the animals ability
to wipe everything in the way of horsefiesh
off the map that he bet literally scores of
thousands of dollars upon him without ever
a return. The brute won but one race as a
three-year-old. and then the man after
whom he was named didn't have a dollar
upon him. having finally given the horse up
as a hopeless proposition. The slough Into
which this man got over the naming of
race horse after him Is beyond capltuiation.
and yet. as l say, he was the very essence
of conServa tiSm before this destroying In
cident occurred.
only a few weeks ago I saw on Broad
way in New York man wearing wire in
his shoes in the place of shoestrings, who
lost every thing-wife family, fortune, hap
pness-from the fact that race horse had
been named after him. And on the very
next day after l met him the horse that
had ruined him won superb race on
New York race track, with the odds of $50
to 1 chalked up against him, and the book
makers We're bruised to the extent of nearly
half million dollars over the event And
yet the outcast whose name the horse took
into the event was public vagrant.
He had been famous a National
Guardsman and a writer on military
matters up to the time that one of his
friends involved him. about three years ago,
in the racing game by naming thorough
bred after him. and his decline from that
time was of the suddenest things l ever
saw. 1t Is a curious circumstance that
when a man who has attained middle age
gets mixed up with gambling his outbreaks
of the fever are infinitely more violent than
those of mere lads who have been in
gambling environment from their birth. and
that's the way it was with this erStWhlle
cool-headed man. He went to the bow
vows In a romp, and he'd have been man
of substance today had he not have had
racing horse named after him.
''One of the most delightful men | ever
knew was the late Col. Waring, the street
cleaner par excellence of New York. He
was the man who applied practical hyg1-
enlc principles ana m0uern SANITATION 10
New York when it was in its fouiest con-
dition and made it as presentable an
Amsterdam kitchen. One day, during Col.
Warnings incumbency street cleaning
commissioner of New York, one of War
ing's fool friends named a horse after him.
THE horse was a good one, too-so good,
in fact that his work was capable Of con-
vincing Col. Waring that he was the great
est race horse on the globe. l should hest
tate to that the race horse Warning
served to hasten Col. Warnings death, but
if that horse didn't come pretty near sad
dening the old mans soul to the verge of
dissolution by his constant defeats then
I'm Door sort of an analyst.
THE horse that has won more races than
any other horse on the American turf this
year IS named Lucien Appleby. This horse
has conquered the best horses in the west,
and is probably capable of conquering the
pick of the eastern handicap horses He
named after a famous American turf
nan who has never Wagered a dollar upon
the turn of card or the result of a horse
race in his life. and yet Appleby is asso-
ciated in the minds of most turf students
with the most rabid of turf plungers
How much money inquired Mr.. Lu-
Glen Appleby the other morning, do you
suppose l would have won had 1 played the
mutt named after me with a parlay play
on a $40 note from the beginning of the
spring? A mere little matter of STAT .7s9, 9S3
and what could 1 have done with the
coin""