Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-18
BY CLARENCE L. CULLEN.

Little Joe Johnson, the Jockey, exuded
o sage remark. for so small a tyke, at the
Pimlico track last week.
johnson had the mount on that in-and-
outer, Lotus Eater. Only three horses were
ticketed to go. Lotus Eater was the l-to-o
thing. since 1t was looked upon as GER
tainty that he would go away and hide
from Ladsarion and Factotum. the other
two
Lotus Eater was sore and proppy going
to the post and he ran that way, 100
There wasn't any run in him worth men
tionlng. He as sluggish as a hoop
snake at skin-shedding time. The little
johnson boy had to begin kicking the horse
from fag-fall. Lotus Eater was dreaming
about carrots and things and he wasn't in
a particle of a hurry. Johnson had to
go to the club and begin to plough burrows
with his spurs before the first quarter was
made. Lotus Eater hung at every stage
of IT, He loafed like a court-martialed
buck soldier doing grdss-cutting fatigue
duty. and the little boy on his back, know
ing about that 1-to-5 price laid against the
horse he rode began to have visions of a
heart-;o-heart conversation in the stand
and a reference of his case to the Jockey
Club Johnson wasn't for that. He couldn t
see Il with a thirty-four-inch binocular.
He proceeded to kick the living daylights
out of Lotus Eater. Lotus Eater. on his
class alone. not because he responded to
the kicking by making the least effort to
hurry up, won the race by part OF race
on the tape from Ladsarion, the 15-to-1
shot
Little Johnson was pale and worried
looking when he dismounted to weigh in
Say" he squeaked to the clerk of the
scales, Il don't like to r.de 1-to-5 things
like that. They get people ruled off,"
Mighty profound observation. that. for
such little bit of boy to unreel!
Horses of the Lotus Eater type have
been the cause of many a square jockey
being set down for long periods or ruled
off the turf. 1t takes a pretty smart jock
ey these days to sidestep the taking Of
mounts on dead" horses. This Is not to
say that Lotus Eater was dead under
Johnson on that day when he had to be
failed alive to beat a bad one by an inch
or So But plenty of horses do run dead
under jockeys who are wholly innocent of
the fact that they are meant to be the
Pats!es and the riding lads and their
managers are compelled to be their
guard against this sort of thing all the
time. For example, turfmen who saw
the race unanimously express the view
that Tommy Waddell was dead under
Radtke on the day. a few weeks ago, when
he was 50 disgracefuly beaten by punk
ones thereby getting Radtke into all kinds
of hot water. Tommy Waddell ran like
horse with a couple of pecks of dried ap-
pies and pail of water in him that day
and he couldn't have beaten a fat woman
with a market basket running after full
tilt 9TH street car on a Saturday night. But
since then that same Tommy has been
making the best horses still in training
look like Shetlands hitched to basket phae
tons Radtke was the beneficiary Of the
citron on that occasion. beyond all reason
able doubt. and men who follow the horse
game from every angle are wondering why
the turf authorities don't think these
things over before taking such peremptory
action. The big bunch of New York horse
men now in town for the Benning meeting
do not hesitate to say that since the be-
ginning of the racing season this year there
have been dozens of genuinely raw cases
that the turf authorities could and should
have investigated.
A dead horse may be defined as one
that is capable of beating the company he
is entered against, but that isn't meant
to beat that company 1t takes a jockey a
long time to sft out the owners and train
who take the chance of running horses
that are not meant" Only the frst-rate
jockeys are in a position to pick and choose
their mounts Most of the lads have to
take what they can get. The crack boys or
their managers execute gentle sidestep
when in-and-outers are flashed In front Of
them, but the average boy has got a living
to make, and he is glad to get as many
mounts as come his way, irrespective of
the quality of the horses or The honesty of
the horses owners or trainers. This makes
1t pretty soft for the crooked owners and
trainers and uncommonly hard for the
jockeys. who, by innocently taking mounts
dead horses that are not in the least
meant" are compelled to bear the brunt
of the ensuing trouble, IL the cases seem
sufficiently raw to the turf authorities as to
require action. Even the best the
Jockeys or their managers make occasional
mistakes. In the case of Radtke. it was
Bob McKeever. his manager, who made
the mistake. McKeever didn't figure that
Tommy Waddell was going to do that
way" hence the mess.
Most of the crack jockeys hate to ride
prohibitive fayorites, or even odds-on IA
vortes. unless they very sure of the
outcome and have a most perfect line on
the owners and trainers OF such horses.
There is always a huge discordant howl
when the / to or to thing Is beaten,
and in nearly every case the jockey is the
one to be blamed. In such cases men who
have never used a pair of field glasses on
see any part of a race except the finish,
blurt out all manner of wholly unjustifiable
knocks-for the jockey. The jock was there
with the Sandow biceps He had taken
the odds-On favorite. He'd only made a
blum at riding. He'd had a ticket in his
bootleg on the winner. He'd purposely
laid out of the race too long, he'd deliber-
atcly got his horse pocketed two or three
times. he had gone wide a-purpose. he had
maliciously caused his horse to get a bad
break. he had purposely crossed in front OF
some horse in order to get disqualified fol
fouling-this is the kind of superheated va
por that is invariably heard every time ar
overwhelming favorite gets the hook. TIL,
boy is inevitably blamed. The people bacl
of the horse are rarely or never accused
by the public. The losing favorite ma.
have been dead" under the jockey a.
any Chaldean shepherd hit by meteo
four thousand years ago. and deliberatel
made dead" by his manipulative and vena
owners But it's the boy who gets tn
hard talk. The owners and trainers ar
under cover and there's no chance for tn
crowd to spring them and give them tn