Evening star., 1906-02-11
THE BETTORS WITH
THE PREMATURE GLOATS


rooms are-stood to lose nearly $1,000
owing to the woozy stubbornness OF q
soused telegraph operator.
THE good race-mare May Hampstead was
to go In big race at Louisville. her CHIEF
opponent being a Ally named Rush-a good
one. but not at all IN May Hempstead's
class. It was thought at the time. It was
virtually match race between these two.
although there were number OF other
starters. and May Hampstead was esteemed
such q cinch at the track that the layers
made her prohibitive fayorite at to 8.
The Covington pool rooms at that time
got their prices and results from a distribut-
ing station in Covington. instead OF from
the track, and on this afternoon the dis
tributing operator had leftover on that
caused him to get the prices in the May
Hempstead-R Rush race all balled up: He
made Rush the 1 to 8 favorite and clipped
May Hampstead along as a 10 to 1 shot,
just reversing the figures.
The Covington room operators all fired
queries at him just as soon as he sent them
the price list this way. asking him IL he
hadn't made a mistake. But his jag was
streaked with stubbornness of the kind
that causes the soused man to insist that
he's right without looking.
Mistake me eye,' he clicked back to
them all. The prices stand as l sent
them
1.-THE soused operator saw that there had
been no changes in the list in the second
line of betting from the track, and he
keyed it along that the prices stood as on
the first line.
"Weil. with all of this confirmation. and
being totally unaware of the condition of
the distributing operator. the pool room
proprietors simply had to take the prices on
the big race as he sent them.
The only way that the pool room people
could account for the extraordinary rever-
sal in the prices was that something had
happened to May Hampstead to destroy her
earned standing as prohibitive favorite
In almost any race In which she was en-
Icr 1eaere- .xIav
picion. and the pool room people figured
that the state of her underpinning might
be at the bottom of the peculiar price on
tap against her that day.
But some of the more cautious pool-room
men declined to take any money the
race, although most of them decided to
book at the prices received from the dis
tributing operator. The players simply
gnawed the 10 to / against May Hampstead
like ST Bernard pups going after slabs of
dog biscuit.
They raced home and pulled up the set
tim room carpet and yanked out the
Kitchen stove to hook to get May Hemp
stead money, and by the time the horses
went to the post at Louisville the puzzled
Covington pool room keepers stood to be
set back easily hundred thousand in the
event of May Hampstead winning.
But she didn't win.
THE mistake really enabled the pooiroom
people to haul down big pile. May Hemp
stead couldn't negotiate the deep going,
and Rush all but ran rings around her.
And 1t wasn't until later in the afternoon,
until the bunned operator had been snag
ged off the distributing wire, that the pool
room folks learned that May Hampstead
had been the l to shot instead of Rush.
x X
THE bookmakers seldom get into such a
trance that they make big overlays through
error, but I've seen that done, too, never
theless, and for the hefty currency.
s"Thpra an a hSep mir dad a ayar ms
Rockhill on the block at the Chicago tracks
about ten years ago who put himself in
line for a terrible jolt one afternoon by
laying 10 to l for d $lU0 bet on horse
that was down on his own blackboard as a
to { shot The horse was BoundleSS.
1T was the first race of the day, and
with Boundless at that prohibitive price
there wasn't much doing. ROckhill was
trying to dope out some way to round out
his book and talking with chinny friend
al the same time, and so, when by way OF
a joke. a man strolled up to his stool and
said, Say, pal Boundless Is 20 to L, amt
he Rockhtll, abSent-mindedly, replied
Yes and went right on talking with his
friend.
Well, I'll take a hundred worth of
Boundless at 20 to l., said the kidder,
shy of a crew that afternoon and was
writing his own tickets, making the sheet
and paying OFF, altogether
The dreamy RockhiIl still IN his poppy
daze-Im not saying that he'd had a hard
night of it, but he must have-deliberateiy
wrote Boundless ticket for $1,000 to $lDO
on the 1 to favorite, and tipped 1t TO the
man who had only made the suggestion as
a joke. Not only that, but Rockhil regis
tered the bet on his sheet without tumbling
to the enormity of his error.
He didn't, In fact, notice 1t till the
horses were on their way to the post, when
he was adding up the totals of his sheet.
When he saw it he let out a bunch or
smothered cuss words, and then looked up,
to see the man who had made the bet
with him standing right alongside of him,
grinning.
!" See 1t low, heyE' said the man who
had made the bet.
"'Yes. / see it all right replied RockhiI.
Goes, doesn't it, inquired the just
playing thinger.
1t goes, replied Rockhill. who was no
mourner. You're cheap skate but the
bet goes. like any other pct that l make
out a ticket for, If Boundless cops your
ticket is as good as wheat. But L don't
want any more of your play, bo.'
But il so happened that the man wasn't
any cheap skate at ALL and he flushed when
that name was applied to him. He had
made the 40 to l suggestion and taken the
ticket more as a joke than in any grasping
spirit and he promptly said so. and told
The bookmaker that the bet could be rub
bed off, for all he cared.
''Rockhill was too game man to stand
for even tho suggestion of such thing,
and he was fair, besides.
Nope he replied, the bet goes. L
wouldn't rub it off for you if you'd made
the mistake and came creeping to me and
asked me to do it before the race. Let er
flicker
"Boundless got walloped good and plenty
stead Of being 81 100 to the bad through
his ent-mindedness, RockhiIl was in the
SlOO bet" Z. l.. Z.