The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-08-28

have chased the price layers and pool
rooms all over America to the poor
house in sets of fours, so to speak,
if. lust If.
"The horse happened to belong to
me, which renders the recital of the
cause underlying the if all the more
gruesome. He was such a good horse.
too, that he has been in the stud for
several years, and he has sent plenty
of winning sons and daughters to the
races.
Il never raced him at all as a Q
year-old. He went a bit wrong when l
was edging him toward the post at
that age, and so I turned him out and
waited for him to come to hand as a
3-year-old. l didn't really know then
whether he was going to be of any
account or not, but when l got him
into racing trim on the old Lexington
track down in Kentucky the work he
showed me made me sit up and gasp.
just dubbed over with the prospect of
a killing that would make the ring
look like an abattoir.
"One thing only bothered me, and
that was the extreme nervousness of
my young horse. He was as iumpy
and jerky as a brindle pup in flea
time, and a piece of paper flying across
the training track or a bit of unusual
noise behind him in his stall would
make him hop around for half an hour
like ball of loose st. Vitus dancing
mercury. I tried to cure. him of it in
various ways, including a thorough
schooling at the barrier, but it was
born in him, and he couldn't help it.
decided to put the killing over anyhow,
figuring it out that if his natural nerv-
BUSINESS caused him to get poor start
for his first actual race his great
speed would carry him through not
withstanding.
Il took him up to the Roby track a
week before l calculated on making
him fetch me home the bale of money,
and when the day came around he was
as fine as a Strad fiddle. I tossed him
into a three-quarter sprint that had
fourteen starters, a number of them
real good ones, and it looked like sure
enough shoo-in for my horse.
81 had put about a dozen of the
moneyed boys wise to the thing, and
our currency, at the hour the race was
due, was down in a whole lot of differ
ent sections of the United States. The
books opened up my unknown at 100
to 1, but we went to that so hard that
after a few minutes the books rubbed
to Is to 1, and not much of that taken.
By. that time, however, we were into
them for q figure that I hate to name
because it makes me lonesome to think
about it.
well, they got away in line, my
horse up among the rest, and the boy
with tight hold on him, according to
instructions, until the stretch was
reached, when he was to let the colt
down and fetch him home on the bit
1t was happening just that way when
five of the horses swung into the
stretch in line.
my colt was on the rail, and the
boy was just beginning to let out the
links when six Internal darkies sud-
denly rose out of the tall, rank grass
alongside the infield fence and stimuli
taneously let out a succession OF
blasts from six long tin fish-horns that
must have been heard down in Ala
bama. My horse jumped about nine
feet in the air, and then leaned heav-
lily, in swerving, on the horse next to
him. Then it was a case of all the
horses in the line caroming into each
other. They were all thrown off their
stride. Mine was the quickest to re-
cover himself, and he came on to the
wire winning like a scared rabbit.
He was disqualified, of course, for
fouling. The books had shifted the ro-
dent when all of the good money went
in on my horse, and a hard loser