The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-19


 ness Than Fall fin Trying to Squeeze
 Through on the RaII-EEect of a
 Tumble on shaw-Marty Bergen's
 Opinion.
 In no other calling in the world, per- haps, is a preponderance of reckless ness so necessary or valuable as in the race riders. One is not to infer from this however, that recklessness alone is a synonym for greatness or that that attribute alone will bring jockey high up the percentage column at the end of the year; but it is a notori- ous fact that the grsatest pigskin artists have not been lacking in it or the disposition to use it at the proper time, and that with it's departure has departed to a great extent the fame that came with it.
 Absence of recklessness does not ne- cessarily mean absence of nerve. Men may have plenty of nerve and yet be without particle of reclessness, al- though in racing parlance the two things msan about the same. Once a boy refuses to take a chance" and squeezes into a hole near the rail, thereby what might prove of inestim- able advantage. straightway the im- pression goes abroad that he has lost his nerve" when he has merely exer- cised what would be considered pretty good common sense on the part of a man claiming to be possessed of that commodity. And hence it seems to be pretty generally understood among horsamen that when a boy "gets old enough to have sense" he is too old to be star rider.
 There are only three ways in which sense ever gets to- be a part of the equipment of a jockey. One is to be born with it, and in the opinion of some horsemen no boy with sense ever gets to be great rider. AS they put it, he becomes a great rider and then he gets old enough to have sense, and then he's no good" That's the second way.
 The third way, and some say the surest, is for boy to get a bad fall in the progress of race. If he gets it as ther esult of taking a chance" it IS supposed to increase the efficacy. For instance, 9 boy is astride one of the leaders in heartbreaking five furlong sprint. He is lying about theird perhaps, and as the two in front of him tear madly along until they come to the turn into the stretch he begins to figure on how far out they Will swing, and instinctively he takes up his mount a little preparatory to skinning the rail and having the in side path on the run down to the wire Perhaps he takes up his horse a trffie too much and loses a little ground; perhaps he miscalculates the the speed of the leaders; perhaps-wel, dozen things might happen to upset his pans. At 2 events, as he urges his horse close to the fence one of the wide swinging leaders commences to bear in. His jockeys idea is to get that
 elted>rail himself. At this in- stant there>is some dick thinking ne- cessary on the part of both boys. Shall they both persist or shal one give way eventually; for no two horses ever he'd a raj at the same time in the same spot. Prudence woud impe the boy on the inside to pull up, the reck- less spirit pulls the other way and he tries to get his horse through a hole that a grown up man would swear q cat couldn't turn around in. His horse is travelling at the rate of fifty-four feet a second, the other horro ~~ngss alongside and bumps him lis horse crosses his forefeet je goes.
 When that boy gets out .1pi- tai, if he ever doss get out, ,. 4.ts on bench in the sunshine for the first time, he begins a system of figuring. Sometimes he cannot quite make out just exactly how it happened. But, suffice; it happened, whether he gets it straight or not and to the last race he ever rides in, if it presents any such problem as was presented before. which led to such disaster, he remem- bsrs just what happened, that and the memory of it has it's proportionate weight in his calculations of possibili- ties. More often than not it comes to him that he doesn't need that rail half so bad as the other boy, and he lets himhaveit.
 A few years ago, at Gravesend 8 horse ridden by Shaw, then in the height of his career as a rider, was in the eei1tr of a bhnch of horses right in the middle of the track. There did not seem to be and crowding particularly, although it was a big field. Suddenly shaW's mount went down and it look ed as if half a dozen horses went right over him. A group of trainers heaved signs of relief as Shaw got up and walked to the outer rail, little the worse for wear.
 He's all right" said one trainer.
 Yes,' said another, "but I'll bet ten dollars you won't catch him in a field like that for a couple of weeks"
 This remark led to some discussion, and the terms of the bet, as finally ar- ranged, were that Shaw would not take 8 mount in race for a week in whic more than seven horses were enngag- ed. The proposer of the bet cashed it.
 On another occasion at Gravesend | one of J. G. Follansbee's horses, a | mare named Golden Grain, won a ] race by as daring piece of horseman- ship as has been seen on a ,racetrack | ill some time, Beauchamp was ridiner