The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1903-05-09
4 "KIL Il SPOILED
SMALL MISTAKE THAT PROVED
f.. VERY COSTLY. d.
WeII.PIanned Race Track Coup
Would Have Melted Thousands Of
Dollars More But for an Oversight
of the Managers.

81 won't say that it's about as hard
for man born in 1870 to get a total
disability pension for participating in
the battle of Gettysburg as it is to
pull off successful hog slaughtering
| on a race track nowadays, but I don't
mind mentioning in confidence that
the people who fetch through a sue
cessful killing on 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 a veteran trainer in charge OF
string out at Benning. ANY one OF
thousand things can f1atten a 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 IL
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 a 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
killing that has been shreWdly and
carefully planned and worked over,
night and day, for months.
"A few years ago that fine mare
| Fleur-de-lis was brought East, after.
successful campaign on the Califor-
MIA tracks, for killing. There were
fewer railbirds then than there are
now, and therefore it was a lot easier
to give her preparation and workouts
without taking chances on her form
being revealed.
1.-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 a good
price against her certainty.
Her people designed to bis
ter the poolrooms throughout
the country on the win, and so they
sent their commissioners to various
points With the money Ia 2 couple a. Of
a
Nov, a short time before the day
of the contemplated killing, the owner
CT the mare got permission from
the Jockey Club stewards, for some
reason or other. to change the mares
rame from Fleur-de-lis to Maxine
! The commissioners who had gone
West and South with the big money
to bet on F]eur-de-lis didn't know any
thing about this switch of the mares
name to Maxine, 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 the
name of Maxine, as is occasionally
done on the poolroom blackboards
when 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
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 failure to inform their commits.
sioners that change in the mares
name had been applied for cost them
good many tens of thousands OF
dollars. "-Washington Post.