Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-26
A Trainers "reminiscences.

One of the veteran trainers al Benning.
a man who through all the changing years
at the game has never lost a certain we'll
known sympathetic twist for the horses
that he has sent out to do battle for fame
and money. was speaking the other day of
some tragic wind-ups of race horses that
had come under his own observation.
THE most dolefu1 thing of that kind
ever saw" he said, was the finish of a
certain great horse at Chicago about ten
years ago. l am not going to mention the
name of the horse, because the man who
owned him is right here at Benning now,
racing a string, and, however much he may
deserve to have the story given the widest
publicity, l don't feel that l ought to be
the one to level the dart at him.
Il didn't have any sort OF connection
with the horse l am speaking of-an turf
men of experience will remember the ami
mails name on reading the story-and his
way of handing in his checks wasn't any
business of mine But 1 want to tell you
that for three or four days after the death
of that good horse there was a lump in my
throat that no atomiZer spraying could
reduce. And there were fellows out there
at the time who had been in the game just
as long as l who weren't talkative or even
civil to each other for q long time follow
Ing the afternoon they saw the horse die.
During the week preceding the day that
the horse reached the end of his little, old
rcpewalk he had won three straight races
in three different cities on the western cir
cult, and then he was dumped off a freight
car in Chicago and asked to go to the
races on the very afternoon of his arrival
in the town.
''The horse wasn't any sulker He chirked
UP when he got to the barrier. and the
Watch me- look blaZed once more in his
good honest eye.
when the webbing flew up the dead
square, little, old horse was off like bullet,
and there wasn't a quit or a curl-up under
his peit
He wanted to do what they were asking
him TO do just as long as he couAi.
He led his field, crack lot. all the way.
and was still In the lead within twenty
lengths of the wire when the reaper of
horses blocked his way with his scythe.
THE horses heart just broke in two.
that's all. There was nothing else to 1t.
He fell dead in his tracks within five jumps
Of the wire.
THE veterinarian said heart disease but
that meant nothing else but broken heart
to those of us who knew what had been
asked of the horse and what he had been
doing In response to the asking
L ought, in justice. to say, however, that
usually 1t is all the other way--the owner or
trainer of a horse that meets with sud
den and lugubrious end suffers more over IT
than all the rest of the onloOkers combined.
Crazed by His Horses Death.
''At the st. Louis track. a few years ago,
1 saw old-time' owner and trainer sud-
denly lose his reason when swell old
sprinter belonging under his shed broke
leg in a race and had to be shot
1.-The Sprinter was an aged geldlng and
had belonged to the one owner since his
weanling days. The horse was as honest
as the longest day of the year in the land of
the midnight sun, and on many occasions
when his owner was pretty nigh to being
down and out the old horse had jumped out
and brought in the coin in string after
string of victories.
'On this day, when the horse, racing,