Los Angeles herald., 1906-03-21
ARE RULED
OFF BY JOCKEY CLUB
UNUSUAL PROCEDURE OF STEWARDS
Durnells Appeal Results in Greater Punishment
for Offending Turfman and j. J. McCafferty,
Whose Case Was Not Taken Before Turf
Board, Is Convicted Without Hearing

! the least that any true sportsman has
ever demanded and when the jockey
club arbitrarily reopened the McCaf-
ferty case. without having acquired
any jurisdiction by appeal or other
wise, and passing upon the merits
of the case without having extended to
the accused the right to defend himself
and his character and reputation, not
| to mention the unfair and questionable
| proceedings of charging, trying and
convicting a man without his knowl-
| edge or presence at the hearing where
| in his character, reputation and integ-
rity are attacked by one who is rec
ognized the country over as his mortal
foe, it perpetrated a fraud upon the
sport and a rank and unamenable in
justice to a man who has spent third
of a century upon the turf without
having before been accused of wrong
doing.
Mccafferty Surprised
When seen last night, ]. ]. McCaf-
ferty said that he was dumbfounded
at the news that the jockey club had
reopened his case and retired it with
out having extended to him the court
esq of notice that such a proceeding
was to be undertaken.
McCafferty has at all times main
tanned that he was innocent of the
charges preferred against him and it
is only fair to McCafferty to say that
in the trial of the charges at Ascot
he was not even accorded the right to
present his witnesses to prove his side
of the contention and the judgment
was passed without the slightest evil
dence of guilt save the report of the
veterinary surgeons who examined the
horse after it had been taken to the
barns of the enemy.
Seymour Beuttler, superintendent of
the Pinkertons at Ascot during last
ason and who has seen thirty years
service at race tracks throughout the
country, including those at New York,
is authority for the statement that
The Huguenot was not doped on the
day charged.
Paddock Judge Henderson was an
other witness who attended the exam
ination of The Huguenot and said af-
terward that the horse had cooled out
as do other horses and that no evil
dence of dope was found
Despite this testimony and the addi-
tional testimony of affidavits from
others that McCafferty was not at his
barns during the afternoon of the day
of the race and affidavits from all his
employees that he had not administered
dope nor given any instructions to
them to so administer it, McCafferty
was convicted and suspended for one
year.
Accepting the decision of the judges
as final, McCafferty relinquished his
position as trainer for ]. A. Weinberg
and F. B. Van Meter is now in charge
of the string of horses.
Although McCafferty made affidavit
to these facts and pleaded with the
judges that his witnesses be called
civ to, nF
his defense, he was convicted by the
judges without the semblance of a
hearing and was suspended for one
year.
Harsh as he believed the decision to
be, McCafferty said last night that he
had accepted it as final and had never
appealed from it. Despite this fact, the
jockey club reopened the case without
notice and melted out greater punish
ment than that prescribed by the
judges.
There are various other facts which
have in the past been suppressed by
those interested in promoting the sport
which seem to be inevitably doomed to
exploitation if the governing body of
the turf game on the coast is to be sub
ordinated to the petty abuses and gem
eral revising in the interest of cliques
and gangs and factions among the
horSemen.
This last act of the jockey club in
fostering and abetting the strife which
has throttled and almost choked to
death the racing game at Ascot is cal
culated beyond measure to deal the
death blow to racing in the southwest.
Scandals have become the features of
Ascot meetings and it seems to be
absolutely necessary that they be con-
tinued even after the racing season
closes that personal spites and bicker-
ings may be gratified at the expense Of
the public which supports the game.
If the Pacific Jockey club had de-
liberately conspired to deal the death
blow to Ascot it could not have acted
more discreetly and effectively than by
delivering itself of the rulings yester-
day whereby the game is given a
knockout blow doubly delivered The
decisions are self-confessed arguments
in favor of forever closing the game.