Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-08
SENSITIVE ANIMA AIS

| A noted trainer of thoroughbreds, who
| dropped into Washington the other day to
| pick out stable room for his string at the
Benning track for the forthcoming faii
| meeting was talking Of the sulking pro-
| pensities of a certain clever race horse now
running on the metropolitan tracks.
| IF the people behind that horse could
4 only find out what trifiing little thing he Is
sulking about" said the trainer, 1T would
| be worth tens of thousands of dollars to
| them. They could easily remedy whatever
little matter it might be that Is causing the
horse to carry such a vast amount Of pout-
ishness about in his midriff, and then, with
his wrong redressed. he'd go right ahead
| and win good races until the end of the sea-
| son.
You often hear the remark that thor
| oughbred horses are as capricious as Wo-
| men. I'd rather put 1t that they're as
whimsical as children. .
Their likes and dislikes are formed all OF
| a sudden, like childs, and as orten as
\ not thoroughbred horse has the same SORT
| of distinctive guidance behind his whimsical
| notion that a child has. For example,
| naturally sneaky, treacherous man has no
more chance to gain the goodwin OF
| highly bred race horse than he has TO gam
| the confidence of child.
| There is something in both the horse and
| the child that tells them that the bad
| hearted man isn't right. That something, 1
| suppose, is pure instinct. d.
| But horses of high caliber have an even
| wider range of whims. That's why every
| good trainer studies the kinks of every one
| of the horses in his charge.
| about ten years ago l trained great
| race horse-one of the greatest of his time
who was as calm and self-contained as a
! priest, except for one thing. He couldn t
| tolerate the sight of a man with beard
| at was pure nervousness, of course, but
you can't tell me that that horse didn't get
| that aversion somewhere. We hear about
| children being marked with some trait or
! characteristic by their mothers Don't you
! believe that that immortal old four-footed
| boy Pm talking about wasn't marked just
! in the same way that children are, before
| his birth, with that hatred for bearded
| man. I believe just as thoroughly as l
! believe that I'm wearing hat that that
| horses dam had been abused by some fell
| low with beard. and that she transmit
| ted her fear of and hatred for bearded men
| to the son, who made her name glorious as
| a stud matron. 1t may not be scientific
and all that, but know lot of plain old
| facts about horses and other things that
| are not embraced in any system of science.
| Most race horses are devoted to women.
| Yet I've trained thoroughbreds that had
such an innate dislike for women that it
| was dangerous for a woman to get any
where near them.
1--WE got a swell horse in my string now
| who is dead gone on the young wife of
| one of the owners for whom 1 train, except
| when she approaches him with the frou-
| frou of sillzen skirt Then he won't toll
crate her around him at all.
1.-THE hiss and the swish Of the silken
| skirt startles him and finally drives him
| into sort of frenzy of nervousness or re-
| sentiment or whatever you want to call it.
| When she isn't wearing any rustling silken
! skirt to bother him, however, he is as gen.
| tie with her as a Newfoundland dog with
| a baby, and bends his ears forward to her
| to have her rub them and muzzles her face
| and hair with the affection of child.
ar1r irf,r, hoe a G
much to do with the formation of a horses
| character as of a child'S. Southern-bred
| race horses, for instance, are devoted to
| their black care-takers, and when such
| horses are switched to owners whose stable
employees are all white men the horses suf-
/ fer severely from lonesomeness for the
| negroes for long time, and they never
| become entirely used to the white stable
| hands. On the other hand, race horses
| bred up north, in New York or Pennsylva-
mia or New Jersey, say, and reared under
| the guardianship of white men, have an in
| tense aversion for the black man.
Il recall the case of fine handicap horse
| which had sensational record as two
year-old and a three-year-old on the south
ern tracks before he changed hands and
/ was brought on to New York tracks to
! show his mettle. His new owner had ire
| mendous expectations of that colt, but the
| horse raced at least thirty pounds below
| his true form from the outset
| From a manger glutton he became a
| poor feeder as soon as he was brought east,
| and only munched enough oats to keep him.
self from starvation. Two or three expert
| veterinarians examined the colt and found
| nothing the matter with him, and yet he
| continued to NOPE and to lose flesh and
| to go about his work in hopeless, lacka-
| daiscal way which made it out of the ques-
| ton to get him to any sort of a racing edge
| worthy his known grand capabilities. His
people coundn't make it out.
| 'One day negro stable hand from
| another barn wandered into that colt s
| stall. AS soon as the colt saw and smelt
| the black hand, he almost ate him up alive
| with pure. unrestrained joy. He licked the
black mans hands and muzzled his shirt
and whinnied and paved the dirt and
| danced around like a crazy horse. The
trainer Of the colt happened to be standing
| by at the time.
| 81 know what ais that colt, he said,
| the light breaking on him. He was born
| and brought up with the coons, and he's
| lonesome for EN-
| THE trainer promptly engaged three
| black stable hands to devote their exclusive
| attention to that horse. He began to gorge
his oats as soon as he made up his mind
| that the darktes were around him to stay,
| picked up meat and muscle, went at his
| work like an unleashed hound, and the next
! time he went to the races he bowled over
his field as If they were dachshunds."