Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-11-26
RACf::::.::TRAck RIOTERS
They Are Certainly a Very
Queer Lot.
NOT ALL ARE NOISY
SOME HAVE NOT EVEN THE
NERVE TO LOOK.
When the Horses Sweep Down the
Stretch-How Others Show
Their Feelings.

On the day when the little horse Race
King smotheredi his field in one of the
early stakes of the Benning meeting we'll
dressed and weli-set-up man of forty or SO,
with pair of field glasses slung over his
paddock coat, watched the race with his
arms resting on the rail separating the
main Enclosure from the free field. Nobody
would have taken him for anything but a
quiet, orderly, perfectly self-contained in
dividual. go,
When the speedy little McLaughlin-train-
ed horse swept down the stretch. with
swift, frictionless stride, the cleanest kind
of a winner by amy amount of open day.
light, and the thousands of people In the
stand and on the lawn were yelling them
selves hoarse, this man never let out
cheer nor so much as changed his position
by the breadth of an inch. But when the
dimInutive horse galloped under the wire,
and the wild cries of Race King! Race
king.' were dying away, the silent rooter
slowly turned away from the rail-. st
His face had gone pale during the race,
and 1t wore a most serious, not to say
solemn, expression. The man slowly ana
deliberately removed his fine and apparent
ly new derby hat. stopped over ana placed
it RIM down ON the ground with both hands,
stood up and Strengthened himself, gave a
sudden leap ditto; the air, and then came
down with betH fesgfupon the hat crushing
it to pulp. :'i:gsM
Those who's swatGhed this performance
couldn't quitel make out whether 1t was
chagrin over 1aaqess or happiness over
win that made the man do this. Some OF
them were sdfieiefftly curious to follow
him. and when., few moments later, they
saw him taking dSwn a big wad OF pins
from a bookfakerS cashier, they under
stood. Jumpirlg pn his hat was that mans
method of expressing his acute JOY. He
rode back tosWasbington after the races
with his head eoyeted by golf cap which
he bought frosn one Of the peanut butchers
On the track GROUNDS
NotsAllIAre Noisy.
'He was only enesiof a good many of his
kind" said one ofsthe multi-clad Pinker-
ton men policlAgrhe track. man who has
been attached to race tracks as detective
for more than two decades. All OF the
racing rooters are not of the hoop-la come
you-hoss kind, nor are all of the rooters
necessarily noIsemakeFs. The shrieling.
smoke-up- Bill rooters iSho, after an after
noon at the race track, have to put their
vocal organs in sings and apply poultices
to them, are In the great majority, OF
course, but there are Slews and slathers OF
reoters who, root just as hard as the
shriekers without ever making sound.
These are the intense people who take the
game so dead seriously that they are rem
dered more or less dumb. or whose emotion
over the outcome of a race is so great that
they are incapable of giving expression to
1t by the mere making. of noise.
There are plenty of rooters who, al
though they have good seats on the stand,
with frst-rate view, OF all parts of the
circular course. never watch the races IN
which they are Interested at all They turn
their heads away from the scene as>soon as