The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-19
MISHAPS OF THE RACETRACK.
VARIED ILL LUCK RECALLED BY
ONE TRAINER.
A sure Thing Defeated by a Candy boy
--Milltlamen Prevent Another Killing
--RObber Saves the BOOkmakers $780,
OOO-Paper Bag Beats 80 to Horse.

--MAIltlamen Prevent Another KILLING
--RObber Saves the BOOkmalsers $780,
OOO-Paper Bag Beats 80 to Horse.
The people behind the horse Cincnnatus
mad laid pipes to make killing with him
at Brighton one day last week but the horse
failed to reach the track till after the race
had been run The stable hand who
brought Cncinnatus over to the Brighton
track from Gravesend, where he had been
trained, said that the horse had been ballsy
and fractions every foot of the way and
that that was the cause of the delay.
It's hard enough to pin an April fool
ticket onto the old game without being
shut out of run for your duff by one Of
these silly little accidents" said veteran
trainer Of thoroughbreds on the Brighton
grounds in commenting on the Cincin-
natus incident. Its been shovelled at
me that way more than half dozen times
since I first began to train them, and
guess that dates back to when Hickory Jim
was weanling.
Nine years ago I was preparing good
horse on ranch in middle Missouri for the
Inaugural Handicap at the st. Louis Fair
Grounds track. Forty eight hours before
the beginning Of the st. Louis meeting I
loaded the horse into padded freight
car stall and had the freight Car tackled
onto the end Of St. Lous-bound passenger
train. I stuffed two of my best hands
Into the car with the horse, and I never
stopped giving directions as to the care
they should take of the cherry ripe sprinter
until the train was half mile away
L skated down to st. Louis on the next
train, and hustled out to the Fair Grounds
track to take look at my watermelon
against which l expected to get at least
Is TO for the Inaugural. l found my good
horse leaning against one side OF his stall
with sad, life-weary pair of lamps in his
head. My Splinter was about as lively
and skittish and racy as python that has
Just got through gormandzing on brace
of overgrown goats, and l could see all
of that money from home that | was so
confident of corrallng with him in the
Inaugural gone of with the fog.
After had banged my two stable hands
heads together for a while. | got it out of
them. Midway between the ranch from
which had shipped the horse and st. Louis,
the candy butcher of the passenger train
had set down his basket of fruit and candy
within reach of the horse, and the horse
had cleaned it out before they saw what
he was doing He was no more fit to race
after that than a cop who has been on police
court duty for twenty years.
The track was lightning fast, as | had
wanted it, on Inaugural Handicap day, and
yet the plug that won the race couldn't
get over the three-quarters in better than
lis, whereas my horse, before he had sur
rounded the candy-butcher's stock, was
in shape to just canter the distance in 1913
or better.
"A couple of years after that had another
hobby pickle IN the brine for stake race
at the Latonia track, gave him his prep
up the State and | didn't ship him from
the farm TO Cincinnati, a distance of about
ninety miles, until the afternoon before
he was scheduled to go to the post for the
race.
at was such short haul that the only
man | sent along with the horse was an
assistant stable foreman, man that l
counted on. This time, too, the horse
went into freight car that was annexed
TO passenger train bound for Cincinnati.
The train was filed with a noisy and bunned-
up gang of soldiers returning TO Cincinnati
from their summer enCampment
When the train got under way my as
slstant foreman, who was rather grouchy
sort of chap, passed from the horse car
into the smoker to get a drink of water,
He found big mob of the militiamen
packed around the water cooler in the
smoker, pouring out the hard booze from
their bottles into the drinking glass and
gulping it down that way,
when my assistant foreman got hold of
the drinking glass he found an inch of booze
and water in the bottom of it. He tossed
the mixture out of the glass onto the floor
h lad
tin-soldier rummerinos that didn't know
how to behave.
THE soldiers heard the crack, and in
something less than four seconds they had
the assistant foreman down in the car aisle.
They forced his teeth open, and, while "A
couple of them sat on his chest, they poured
about quart of corn liquor into his system.
He was so spifficated before they let him
up that they had to lift him bodily and
plant him in seat
Then the guardsmen cambered out of
the smoker and into the freight car to look
the horse over. They decided that tho
horse, too, was built too much on the tenn
parance plan. and half dozen of them
unshipped their tlaslls and began to pour
booze into the horse. Tho horse was
paralyzed inside of five minutes, and rock
ing around in his padded stall like a man
o'-wars man on shutdown liberty after
three-months quarantine.
and handler when the freight car was
shunted from the passenger train. found
the man and horse lying down alongside
each other both drunker'n fiddlers' gyps,
and all in, 70 the last ounce The horse
wasn't over his katzenja hammer for week,
and of course | had to scratch him from
the race, which was won by a crab that
my horse could have smothered at thirty
pounds difference in weight
in 05 | had my string quartered in an
outside barn about quarter of mile from
the old Roby track, near Chicago, all of |
the stalls on the track grounds having |
been taken up. One day | was going to
cut up and smoke down enough hog meat !
to last me dozen winters with an aged !
sprinter, a famous old gelding of his day, /
whose form | had been keeping under the |
lid of the kettle for months waiting for |
just such an opportunity.
"On the afternoon of the race | hitched |
the old gelding to a sulky and started with |
him to the track myself. / had often done |
this before, for the speedy old duffer was |
restless and impatient at his end of leading |
string, and even hated to be led around |
the paddock for joint Numbering before
a race. Halfway to the Roby track I |
hoped down to go into tobacco store |
for paper of chewing tobacco, hooking !
the old fellow to a ring post
Il chatted for moment with the tobacco |
man, and was ust starting out of the little
shop when | heard shot coming from |
the direction of the office of n hay and |
the door then and saw fellow jumping
into the sullty to which my old gelding
was hitched The fellow had already |
unlocked him from the ring post.
The boss has Just shot hSself and I'm /
going after DOCTOR! he yelped at me.