The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1903-05-30
4 "KILLlNG" SPOILED
SMALL MISTAKE THAT PROVED
VERY CosTLY. +.
Well-Pianred Race Track - Coup
Would Have Melted Thousands Of
; Dollars More But FOR an Oversight
of the Managers.

OA Say I1ldl ~ dUUuL GS uNlth
for man born in 1870 to get total
disability pension for participating in
the battle Of Gettysburg as it is to
pull off successful hog slaughtering
on race track nowadays, but dent
mind mentioning in confidence that
the people who fetch through sue
cessful killing On a race course at
this stage of the game have got to be
mighty slick, and they have got to
have a whole lot of luck besides,'
said veteran trainer in charge of {;
string out at Benning Amy one OF a
thousand things can flatten q prepar-
ed coup out like a piece of roofing
tin nowadays. The railbirds, in the
first place, have got the prepared
killing pretty nigh coppered. Moth
ing gets away from them on any track
from dawn's early light. And even If
the word doesn't leak, the battle be-
tween the layers and the players has
now reached such an acute stage that
the boys with the states begin to
rub the minute man whose face
they know begins to make the rounds
on any horse with price chalked up
against him. Not only this, but the
! most foolish little mishap can utterly
destroy all possibility of pulling off a
killing that has been shrewdly and
! carefully planned and worked over,
! night and day, for months.
! "A few years ago that fine marc
Fleur.de-lis was brought East, after
, successful campaign on the Celifor-
MIA tracks, for a killing. There were
fewer railbirds then than there arc
now and therefore it was a lot easier
TO give her preparation and workouts
without taking chances on her form
! being revealed.
"'The mare was pitchforked, with
nothing worth mentioning in the way
of weight on her back, into an over
night handicap with a lot of swagger
horses, which made good
price against her certainty.
, Her people designed to blis-
i ter the .e.2s.< poolrooms,4 throughout
4 the country on the win, and $50 tksy'
sent their commissioners to various
points with the money couple OF
days before the race.
Nov, short time before the day
of the contemplated; killing, -the owner
of the mare got permission from
the Jockey Club stewards, for some
reason or other, to change the mares
name from Fleur-de-lis to Maxine.
The commissioners who had gone
West and South with the big money
to bet on Fleur-de-lis didn't know any
thing about this switch of the mares
name to MaXiLe, and, through an
! oversight, they were not informed.
1T happened that the poolrooms
the commissioners went to failed to
chalk formerly Fleur-de-lis' after tho
name of Maxine, as is occasionally
done on the poolroom blackboards
when a horses name is changed, and
so the commissioners, concluding, for
some reason or other, that the mare
hadn't been entered in the race that
was to be the killing, kept all of, that
y fine Fleur-de-lis money right in their
clothes. You can draw for yourself a
little charcoal sketch Of how these
commissioners felt when the opera
tors in the poolrooms, after calling
off the race and announcing that
Maxine had strolled in something
easy, supplemented their call-off with
the dry remark: Maxine was form
erly Fluer-de-lis.'
"The Maxine party made big
thing of the win at the track, of
course; but SO trivial an oversight as
their fai1ure tn inform their commic
: sioners that change in the mares
name had been applied for cost. them
a good many tens of thousands CT
dollars. Washington Post.