Evening star., 1907-06-30
TALES OF THE TURF

him with a bunch of overnight handicap
skates, when he's there with the quality
to skin all of these braggy nags In the big
stakes! l wish you'd told me right about
that one last fall sure do
Il couldn't see any sense in twiddling my
tonsils any more right then in trying to
show this owner that he really didn't own
horse of the century, but later on In the
to make it clear to him that little horse
carrying 93 pounds with a great boy up,
and in a running mood doesn't necessarily
have to be crack in order to put 1t on
pack of high weighted ones not yet ready
for the races, and the best of them the vic
Tins of bad rides in the sprint.
"An the same, my owner man Will go
right on being sorry for the rest of the
season that his shifty little once-in-a-while
three-year-old wasn't entered for the big
gest of the stakes, and the horse Will have
to be beat by lot of common ones-as he
sure will be when everything doesn't frame
up just right for him-before the owner will
reach the sort of halfway, hold-out con-
cluson that he doesn't own a great race
horse.
And even then there's about an even
money chance that he'll cling to sneak
ing sort of notion that got his little get
it-occasionally horse beat just to show him
that his mutt didn't belong to the cracker
jack class.
81 could name you a whole lot of jobs
more pleasant than this thing of training
horses for wealthy fellows who, without
knowing much more about racing or race
horses than they do about the purchasing
power of a dollar when the dollars the
only one left OF the cache, nudge into the
stable-ownng business for the hooroo-boys
fun in the game and the pleasure of seeing
their colors flaming in the sunlight Most
OF the owners of this class are pretty un-
reasonable. and some of them are jokes.
"A few winters ago one of these young
millionaires with the horse-owning bug
turned a real clinker over to me. He'd been
changing trainers about as often as small
boy looks at new brass watch. SO that
when he came TO l had, or thought
had a clean understanding with him.
m to handle whatever horses you turn
over to as if they were my own, told
him, out and out.
All right-that goes with me- he said,
and everything looked pleasant.
The crack he put in my keeping was en-
tered for all of the years great stakes, be-
ginning with the Brooklyn handicap. The
winter was long and the spring short, and
l could see when l took this good horse up
that there'd be no chance for me to get him
20 the post for anything early the
gross horse that came to hand late and
with the hot weather, and he had a bad
front foot that required more tinkering
than could be given 1t while the horse was
In earnest training. So l kept the horse on
the easy side and worked away at his bad
foot. \ month before the Brooklyn l said
to the owner:
- won't be able to send your good nag
to the post for the Brooklyn
We'll, he rounded on me as if I'd tried to
tip his hat over his eyes.
why not% he bawled at me.
Well, that cracked hoof. for one thing
l told him. That's welding together in
fine shape but | don't want to ask any
thing hard of the horse until the hoof.looks
still better. He's numbering along all right,