The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-03

loquacious customer generally, especially after one of his picks had copped.
 ..Skid's head was hanging sort of side ways with the left check resting in his folded arms There was a wide grin on his features and his eyes were closed.
 "The grin didn't look exactly right to me, and so I shook him lightly. He toppled back from his sitting posture, and there he was, stretched out on the steps, with that queer grin on his face, and not move in him.
 Hey, doctor here! some of the men around called out, and in half a minute the jockeys surgeon, who was in the stand, was bending over Skid, whom he knew.
 Skid's plumb in,' said the doctor, af- ter momentary examination, and so he was.
 l was standing alongside well known San Francisco politician, back in 97. when he died from the strain of having won a $SvVU even-money bet on old Rubicon.
 "The politician was q big, rugged-look- ing man. who had been playing the horses on the California tracks for most of his life He'd visited the eastern tracks in the summer of '97 and they'd put a big dent in him. His bad luck continued with hardly a break for a month or so after the California racing season began, and he was known to be about s50.000 to the bad on the racing year.
 "On this day he came to a lot of us around the stables and asked us what we thought of Rubicon. We told him 1t look ed too hard.
 Rubicon was in that day with Yeman, and Yeman had been doing some pretty shifty miles around Ingleside, where this thing happened. We advised him to wait for something softer, but he had the Rubicon bug bad, and he told us that he was all for Rubicon to get a little piece of his losings back anyhow.
 Rubicon opened at even money, with Yeman at to 5, and the rest of the field of seven horses only running for the third money at any old price.
 When, just before the race. the poli- ticlan joined a bunch of us the little grassy knoll in the infield, he didn't ap- pear to be unduly excited.
 I've gone to Rubicon for 5000,' he he said to us cheeriy. Root along with me-
 "Rubicon and Yeman got away together on their toes, and one blanket could have covered the pair of them for the first five furlongs with the rest of the field utterly forsaken by these two after sthe first fur long. The two leaders slapped down the first fve-elghths In 59 seconds, and 1t look ed as if one of 'em would have to crack soon. We all figured that the one to crack would be Rubicon.
 ''The politician stood at the top of the mound. with his field glasses on the pair, and he wasn't saying word.
 At the far turn the unexpected hap pened. Yeman blew. chucked it utterly, and Rubicon put the daylight between him and the contender in a twinkling. breezing into the stretch alone, Yeman logging 1t every jump.
 We heard a sort of gasp behind us when that happened. and looking around, we that the politicians field glasses had fallen out of his hands to the grass and that he had both hands at his eyes If he were dizzy. Before any of us could jump to him he had fallen at full length on one side of the mound and then rolled heavily down to the level ground.
 "He was as dead as a door knob be- fore Rubcon crossed the line six lengths i, to the good and Yeman nowhere"