The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-02-19
WHITNEY HAD NO USE
FOR THE PLUNGERS
Did His Best to Discourage the Specu-
Iative End of Racing.

the death of William c.. Whitney racing
in the United States received a
shock from which it Will be long in re-
covering said a welI=known Wash
ington sportsman, who has had his
racing colors registered with the jockey
clubs for many years past. Il do not
mean that racing will suffer material
ly or financially, for there are too
many substantial men of affairs now
in charge of racing as an institution in
this country to cause. the sport to suf-
fer even when one of its mainstays
drops out. l refer to what may be
termed the square side Of racing.
Crooked racing men zg1ever took many
chances at any race track with which
William C. Whitney had anything to
do. They knew their inevitable fate,
so far as the American turf was con-
cerned, If they were discovered in
jobs on race courses with which Mr..
Whitney had any connection. From
the day that Mr.. Whitney took his
position as a racing man, he began his
quiet but merciless campaign against
the thieves and cadgers of the turf, and
he never let UP on them once he had
clear proof against them.
''He was utterly opposed to the sys-
tenn which permitted the gambling
feature to be the uppefmost feature of
racing, and he never ceased in his eff
forts to make the gambling end of it
subservient to the more worthy fea-
lures of racing. He was sternly in OPP
position to the tremendous plungers,
the chaps whose enormous winnings
were advertised all over the country,
to inf1ame the minds of young men
and make them Disconnected with
T1n raFs
after plunger, during recent years, has
been quietly notified at the instiga-
ton of Mr.. Whitney, one of the pow
erS of the Eastern turf organization, to
either curtail the size of the specuIa-
tions, or else betake himself to other
fields. Some Of the plungers ranted
and raved over these notifications, but
they all ended by agreeing to obey the
warning.
Although he took his position in
turf affairs late in life Mr.. Whitney
had from his young manhood been de-
voted to thoroughbred horses, but it
was only when his affairs were at
length welded into such shape that he
found himself able to- give almost I'M
divided attention to the formation Of a
great racing establishment that he en-
tered upon the sport of racing at all.
The love of a conquering race horse
Whitney. He loved the horse for the
power and beauty and courage and no.
bility Of him, and not because of his
value as a racing tool or his earning
capacity.
"Of all the great horses that he ever
owned, I believe that, he loved the
splendid colt Ballyhoo Bey, that won
the Futurity for him, the most. Bally-
hoo Bey was considered a speed mar
,,.Isx L.,
the old blue grass country, but he
was difficult to train. and when he was
shipped North at the beginning of his
two-year-o ld year to race in the great
fixtures for which he had been entered,
the colt went amiss. John Madden,
the astute horseman who had the colt
in charge, never lost faith in him, how
ever, and finally got him to the post
in a race at Saratoga, a week or so
before the Futurity. Mr. Whitney in
quired, a bit doubtfully, after that
race.
" Nothing was Maddens instant re-
ply, except that he's the fastest thing
wearing hair in the world today
@Mr. Whitney had previously wired
to England to have Tod Sloan, the
greatest Of all the Jockeys, past or
present, to come to this country to ride
Ballyhoo Bey in the F'uturity at Sleeps
". TSdCn0Q new
York Mr.. Whitney took him up, to Sar-
atoga to give Ballyhoo Bey a workout
and find out what Sloan thought of the
colt. Sloan sent the colt along at rae
ing clip for five furlongs.
:" Is he any account, Tod?' Mr.. Whit
ney asked the jockey when he was
climbing down from the colt.
HES the fastest horse I ever threw
a leg over the little jockey man re-
piled, instantly.
"Sloan rode Ballyhoo Bey to an easy
victory in the Futurity, and Mr.. Whit
ney won the FIatbush stakes, but the
win was protested by Foxhall Keene,
the owner, with his father, of couple
of horses in that race on the ground
that Sloan had allowed BaIlyhoo Bey
to bump the Keene colts, and it is a
well known fact that Mr.. Whitney was
never quite able to forgive that accusa-
ton, for the race was a fair one. He
sent the amount of the Flatbush stakes
to a Brooklyn hospital. utterly refusing
to accept the money after the protest
had been made, and he would never
again look at a race Of any Of his
horses against Keene horses. When Bal
lyhoo Bey broke down at the beginning
of his three-year- year Mr.. Whitney
journeyed all the way down to Ken
lucky to pamper the colt.
used to humorously comment on the
fact that Notwithstanding the tremen-
dous success of his horses, he lost four
out of five of the bets that he made on
them. They seemed almost bound to
get just beaten out when their indul-
gent owner had bumper bets down on
their chances. He had $4,000 down on
the winning chance Of his great Gunfire
in last years Brooklyn handicap. When
18Th n {1a1 I, A.
his son, Harry Payne Whitney, took
that race on the very wire. winning the
event literally by two inches, after one
of the most gruelling contests in all
racing history. Mr.. Whitney gave his
son slap on the back and said to him
affectionately
Wei, it's all in the family, SON."
I'd rather you had got it with Gum
fire, governor he replied, and you can
wager that nobody within hearing dis
lance thought any the less of young
Whitney for that remark"