The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-28

Solu III the IODdCcO countess dllu lilS solid men from those counties didn't come to Washington to look on. There was plenty of one hundred and | fifty to one against McFonso. The lay CTS never rubbed, for there were lot of mighty shifty hurdlers straight from 1 the New York tracks in that race. | But it was only stroll for McFonso. A gentleman who was with the Massa- i chusetts regiment that got itself at tackled in passing through Baltimore at l the beginning of the civil war saw that race. He said that the noise made by the thousands of furious Baltimoreans While that riot was in progress wasn't a marker to the stupendous Brobdingna- | gian din that penetrated the circumam- bient from the Benning grounds when 1 old McFonso came home in his boys lap that day, the boy affectionately strok- ing the gelding's ears.
 ! But the worst grueling suffered by the Benning layers at the hands of the Vir- ginians thus early in the season did not come from horse out of the Bradley barn. All of the horse-dabbling popu- lation of the two Virginais shared in the Bradley successes, of course, particular | ly when the Aloha colt, Allen Avon, beat a pair of eyen-money shots in a four-ho two-year-old race, with twenty to one against his chance, in a comm stroll; but the Old Dominion folk accomplished their big haul when a 1 Virginia cold named Little Woods at his first try with lot of forty to one chalked against him.
 "A Washington man who was making a business tour throughout Virginia a week or so before the Benning meeting began heard all about that Little Woods l thing every place he went. They were l talking about it in Richmond, in Lees burg, in Fredericksburg, in Lynchburg, | in Roanoke and in Norfolk for two weeks before the bugle summoned the horses to the post for the first race at Benning. Even in the little cross roads towns of Virginia the news of that Little Woods thing had percolated the Washington man found.
 "On the night before that Little l Woods race was run and won all of the up trains from Virginia brought into Washington little parties of quiet chaps in obviously new ready made suits of clothes. They were young, middle-aged and old. They were weather bronzed ! for the most part, and had rough hands 'tThe majority of them carried black glazed bags of an old pattern, and they kept to themselves, repairing to small and inexpensive hotels for the night EThat they kept their good thing to | i, se- foo ot that the Little Woods trick was utterly unknown to the players in Washington Hundreds of these Virginians were on the Benning grounds long before the first race, and the bookmakers, early te arrive at the track, wondered what was lup. They fluttered their programmes tc find out; but there were a number oi Virginia horses carded to go that day and none of them appeared to have the slightest chance.
 When the horses went to the post fol the first race the Virginians were stand ing in little groups by themselves They didn't go near the betting ring te l get down on that race and they weren'i ltaIking. But when the slates went UT for the second race they made theii lswoop with long strides for the ring.
 'The owner of the colt had passed the word around to the Virginians that il would be all right for them to take the early price, as he had his men stationed in the rooms around the country to get I the first betting, and their eating up the lprice wouldn't hurt him so long as his lcommissions went down before the flash. There was some sixty to one against Little Woods, and slathers oi forty to one Nose of them got left or the twenty to ole, and the post price was, averaging all the books, fifteen te one, and very little of that on tap.
 When Little Woods went out and spread-eagle his field the young people in the stand, baEl long after the war
 had their chance to find out what the rebel yell sounded like. It was the kind of shout that always greets Fitzhugh Lee when he rides down Pennsylvania avenue in a parade.
 "The Virginians collected Then they leaned against the rails and stanchions
 letting the horses in the rest of the races run for Hogan. They had theirs
 Almost to man they picked up theii
 black-glazed bass that night and rode back to their Virginia homes in the steam kyars.''
 It is another story how, on the follow
 ing day, the Mhrylanders drubbed theil
 horse Fustian from twenty to one tc
 two to one at post time-and not mucf of that on offer-and got Fustian home first by tooth, to the unspeakable misery of the bookmakers.
 But it is no wonder that the astute layers down this way have reached the \ conclusion that there are a good many
 easier tricks to be turned ill the horse
 game thaf to separate yirginians and Marylandtrs from their coin.-Chicagc
 Inter-Ocehn.