The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-09
HOW A HORSE WON HIMSELF.
Owner Had staked Him for a Winner
 in His Own Race.


 in His Own Race.
 That Poverty Pete maxim about not putting all of your eggs in one basket doesn't often work out on race tracks, ? and man who, now that he can't play the horses except in the handbooks, has got to talk about them anyhow. I've been watching the thing for a good many years and I've noticed that it's the fellows who are game to take just that kind of chances who get by with their risks more often than not.
 There was an owner down on the old lSt. Louis fair grounds who had been straight years, and the thing at length began to jangle him up. His string of about fourteen platers and one stake horse had diminished down to the stake horse alone.
 This one was crippled 5-year-old, with the scalps Of the best horses in the West dangling from his bridle, but his feet were so uncertain, on account of the hard campaigns he had been sub- jected to that he became an in-and-out- CT. When the track didn't burn his l feet, he always deposited the goods on the doorstep, but when his old legs be- gan to get het up he'd stop and look over the fence and pick out tufts of soft grass with his eye.
 '"The day came when the horse was lentered for one of the big St. Louis lhandicaps, in which there were some lswell horses, ten or a dozen of them The horses owner didn't have a dollar to bet on his good old grub-grabber, and he liked his hores's chances at the weights. too. There weren't any clew- lines on his nerve. and he dug up the famous owner and cookie. Barney Schreiber, who had book on the line at the time.
 "' Barney said the horse owner chewing on a straw just as if he'd been passing the time of day, what dye think that plug of mine is worth in real duff-not milk tickets or rain checks or stage coin, but money?
 He be worth $1O0O if his props were right Jack replied Barney, in his dia- Ilect; but he's too dicy on his pins after the way you've been hauling him, to be worth much in any mans barn now
 7" I'm asking you what you think he's worth right now. Barney, said the lowner.
 /" Oh, if you stood him on the block. lyou might be able to draw down a lcouple of thousand for him said Bar lney, in his Weberfields way. Why are you asking? Want to sell him.?
 Not on your Teutonic map do I want to sell tooNyourto' dnicomp anuto want to sell him, said the owner; but I lsure want to hook him a whole lot. What price are you going to lay against lhim to-day?
 "Oh, bout 10 to II replied Schreiber.
 "Uh-huh, said the horses owner. Well, you chalk me on your sheet $2O,- 900 to $2,O0O that he don't cop to-day Tf The doesn't he's your nag, and I hope that you see that he gets clean straw to rest on-he's been mighty good to me. If he wins, me for s20,O00. On?' On replied Barney, who didn't think the horse had any chance to win, land who felt an itch to possess the ani- lmal for his stud farm.
 "The old horse won the handicap in a parade by eight lengths, with his head swinging, and if you like to hear good lstrong language expressed in the Ger lman tongue, you ought to have been anywhere within two Salt Lake blocks Iof Barney Schreiber after that race, Iwhen he had to dig up $2O,OoO to the lowner who had the nerve to put all of lhis eggs in one basket