Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-12
BOYS WITH THE RINGER BUG


Now that they've spotted and recorded
that neatly named horse Cataract. the
ringer for the sure-enough horse Freck-
man that got nailed and shoo-fed before
reaching the post. the shady boys with the
ringer bug will probably not try anything
again this season." observed one OF the
most astute of the veteran trainers now
at Benning-a man who always has keen
line on what is coming OFF in the paddock
and around the stables of the eastern race
tracks.
Nhe ringer workers are the most timid
lot, considering the long chances they de-
liberately take of getting nabbed. connected
with the turf, either the shady or on
the level side. They've nerve enough and to
spare right up TO the minute when they
think they're due to crowd In and collect
the kale. But when their job is right on the
taps, so to speak, they're as jumpy as
country colts that meet buzz wagon with
a steamboat siren on the high pike, and
one teenchy breath of suspicion that makes
as much OF an atmospheric ripple the
respiration of a lady bug will stampede 'em
10 the tail grass like blackbirds beating it
south.
These Cataract ringer boys, you'll have
observed, vanished like the wadded-up ce
rise handkerchief in the palm of the pres
tididge man when the stewards were put
hep and issued their summons for persons
and papers, and If they're not somewhere
on the yon side OF the Rockies by this
time then didn't have any wheat cakes for
breakfast this morning, and that's saying
some.
so far the balance of proof goes, the
ringer boys put just one, but that a big
one, over last year. The Fiddler. that con-
nectcd at Morris Park. was the alleged one
/ say alleged. because II has never yet
been absolutely and finally proved to the
nf al ,at
really was ringer. There We're ten cir
cumstantial details to one in favor of the
idea that he was ringer, but the case
has never been made complete, and prob
ably never will be. Personally, / think
The Fiddler was a phony. The cleanup
on him when he traipsed at Morris Park
was something vast. bigger, l have been
told by western poo! room betters on
large scale. even thar the big dividend that
was declared among The shady ones when
Polk Badget-the most notorious ringer
case I'm American turf annals-connected
with the duff at the Cincinnati track But
the California pool room people, who are
not Reubens when ii comes to knowing
what's race and what's not, were so dead
sure that The Fiddler was a ringer that
they never paid off on him.
X
zone of the big Chicago pool rooms, a
plant backed by turfman who comes pref
~ nigh knowing the markings of every
horse in this country in or cut of train
ing also refused TO slip the duff COPIED on
The Fiddler to the dead-hep ones that
played 1t in his room. This man, as soon
as The Fiddler won, hoped train at Chi
cago and beat 1t to New York to take a
peek at the horse, and after one look he
named the horse that he swore The Fid-
dler was the ringer for. The one he named
was the one everybody in favor of the
ringer idea suspected The Fiddler to be-
In keeping an eye out for ringers, at
tention is paid to the horses that suddenly
bob up mysteriously after having been out
of 1t and more or less forgotten for some
time. | won't go so far to say that any
body was exactly waiting for Freedman to
show up as a ringer. but there was kind of
an idea that that horse-he wasn't any bad
one out on the slope-might happen along
under another. name some old day or
other He was stolen out at Oakland dur
ing the California racing season last win
ter, and the information that he'd been
stolen wasn't long in percolating along in
this direction. Somebody or another, I'm
not saying who, had Freckman's name on
his cuff, so to speak. when that mysterious
Cataract horse turned up one of the en-
tries in a bad field the other day, and that's
how It happened. Johnnie McCafferty
clinched the thing by recognizing Freck-
man after the first peek the head and hind
feet paint to which Freedman had been
treated TO make him into Cataract not fool
ing Johnnie for as much as an eighth of
a second.
When a horse has been absent and I'M
accounted for for a long time. and then
gets his name in the entries some old day
or other, and the people standing for him
In the capacities of owner and trainer are
not known very well, it's pretty likely
that somebody connected with the Jockey
Club, and somebody with a pretty reminis-
cent pair of lamps, at that, is going to
have a fash at that horse on the day be-
fore. This quiet little scheme puts the
kalsomine on more projected ringer enter
prises than are ever heard of. Not all of
the phonies discovered in the course of
these Investigations are announced. and
many a low-brow with a painted four
hoofer Is edged out of his stable space on
the double, and sometimes with horny
knee in the middle of his back without the
public being any the wiser. The best In
terest of the turf is considered when the
trying -be-ringer workers are let go quiet
ly. This doesn't mean, though, that they're
ever going to be allowed to race any more
on the level or on the crook, east or west.
Not a season passes around the New
York race tracks that at least Eve or six
ringer cases are not framed up, but they're
only put over once In a very great while.
l don't mind saying that some of these
ringer frame-ups are arranged sclentif-
ically that a great many more of them
would actually get by than actually do if
IL We're not for the timidity of the people
back of them and the gabbiness of some of
the shady connections when the gabby ones
fall to believing that they're only going TO
be allowed to hold the bag. No ringer can
be put over without certain number of
the shady ones being let in on the job. and
il is often the lack of acuteness on the
part of the main people in picking the right
ones TO be let in that flags them at the
last minute.
About this time last year a western
trainer with a rather bad aroma hanging
around him drifted to one of the Long ISL
and tracks with one of the best pieces of
artistic paint that ever exercised under a
phouy hide He called this one a badge
horse and got away with it, for his painted
one had no more looks than my old-maid
great aunt in Schenectady. The horse that
this one was the painted ringer for was
cheap selling platter that had been clubbing
around the St. Louis tracks getting MOTH