Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-05-12
Millionaires Pour Out Money Like
Water in Racing.
GREAT STABLES ARE BIG EXPENSE
Show an Annual Loss of $4,000 Often
!. This Occurs at Times With an
Owner Who Has Won 100000
Pay of Trainers and Jockeys.

Many people have more or less
correct idea of the cost of individual
horses in an important stable, but very
lew have any idea of the expenses
connected with conducting such an es-
Establishment.
When the layman sees prominent
owner heading the list of the seasons
winnings with S10S, 400 to his credit, as
was the luck of a well known patron of
the turf last year, he naturally feels
that it is good business venture On
the contrary, high class horse racing.
IN this country and England, is the
one sport or industry in which the
wealthy man pours out his cash in a
generous flood, never expecting to
make profit, or, in fact, to cover ex-
penses within limit of $4,000 up-
ward of loss.
Ii he gets clear with loss of $40
600 on a twenty-horse stable, he is ex-
ceedingly lucky and has probably made
UP the balance by speculation. This
is not theory, but an accepted fact!
The average American mind has. in
the past, become SO accustomed to
making it pay that it has not vet
grasped the fact that the once rigid
slowly giving way to more reasona-
ple instinct of recreation, and to the
establishment of a semi-leisure type of
individual, which has an extremely val
liable national bias. These public spir-
ated men are found very prominent in
thoroughbred horse circles, and in
England have been for centuries the
backbone and fountainhead of the un--
rivaled thoroughbred horse industry,
which is Indispensable from racing.
What Winnings Represent.
Taking the highest winning record
of last year-$10S, 440--what does it
represent?
In an ordinary mercantile transac-
ton it would stand for gross receipts
containing certain amount of profit
Here it represents gross receipts on
a stable costing away up in the mil
lions; on Westbury, with its salary list
of 100000 annually; on the Sleeps
head Bay and the Kentucky farm es.
adjustments and all expenses and sal
aries appertaining thereto.
To gain an idea of what such a sta
Bile entails on its owner, let us take a
moderate stable of twenty high class
these may be figured as worth 100000
subject to sickness and immediate de
terioration for which there is no type
OF insurance except that which entails
the death of horse. Nasturtium was
deemed worth $4,000 when he sailed
to England last fall; he went wrong
became a roarer, and was returned
here and is an unknown quantity al
the stud worth-what?
The twenty horses in this suppose
tious stable require trainer whose
salary will range up to $4,000 year
the cheapest good trainer getting
$4,000, to which must be added an in
terest of ten per cent on all stake win
nings
This seems like large sum of mon
ey, but the conscientious trainer earns
every cent of it. The responsibility is
immense; the mental anxiety some
thing beyond conception. He is out be
fore daybreak to watch his charges as
they develop A colt or filly wrongly
handled, too much pushed, or too little
means a costly error. amounting tc
possible hundreds of thousands of dol
lars.
The trainer must be good amateur
veterinary, capable of diagnosing the
early symptoms of all sudden seizures
and able to administer FIRST aid" while
the regular veterinary is1being hurried
to the spot. He must have a keen eye
on the jockeys and exercises9boys, tc
see that they do not abnse theil
charges, or get racing along fhe turn!
or stretches; see his charges properl,
rubbed down, fed. Uttered and feet
calked, etc., to bewildering extent