Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-22
By Clarence L. Cullen.
Special Correspondence of The Star.


The ruling off the turf by the Jockey
Club of Boots Durnell is the G-major
topic at the Broadway paddock. More
horsemen of note stayed behind here this
season, passing up the winter games Alto
gether, than for a dozen years past, and
so there are plenty of them on hand to
fan over the dose dished out to Boots"
AS a general thing. they strike one
chord of sympathy :or Durnell. and just
that one. They unite in saying that Dur
nell got mean deal at the hands OF the
Jockey Club in that he wasn't notified
of his turn-down until after he'd gone to
the big expense of shipping his stable
to the Pacific coast. This was some
item in the matter of horse transportation,
and a bigger item this year for Durnell
than it would have been at the end OF
any other year of the last decade-for
Durnell, the willy. is virtually down and
out financially. Horsemen who express
no sympathy whatever for the Dolus
handed out to Durnell are fair enough
to say for him that the Jockey Club GER
tainly should have known its mind about
him before he dug down practically to the
bottom of his depleted and fattened
bank roll to send the remnants of his
string to the west slope.
That, however, is about as far as the
turfmen will go for Boots. Most OF
them are OF the opinion that Durnel
stuck around in the game a good deaI
longer than he had any right to expect
considering some of his practices. Iney
laugh when they read John W. Gates al
legged howery utterance TO the assehce
that he. Gates, would rather trust Dur
nell with the key to his safe deposit vault
than any man on earth" They give IL 10
Gates. though. that he will and does stick
up and by and for and with his friends;
And there isn't any manner of doubt
that Durnell in so far as mouse can
be good to an elephant, was good TO
Gates. Durnell made" Gates win Ito
employ the phraseology of the touD some
thing bordering pretty closely on S250.OoO
before Gates. gently warned by the Jockey
Club that he was going too far with his
spectacular plunging, pulled up stakes
and sailed over to Europe when the game
was yet young this past season Despite
all of the stories to the contrary, Gates
had never had a winning year at plunging
until he hooked up with Boots Durnell
this last season. During the two years
running when they pooled their issues
John ". Gates and John H. Drake. to-
gether, dropped close to a million dollars
trying to beat the plunging game from
the clubhouse. Last year, going it alone
Drake pulled out when he saw there
was a swell chance for him to be smoth-
ered), John W. Gates dropped a six-figure
bundle that one hates to set down for
fear of being accused of exaggeration.
When the game got to swinging last
spring. however Mr.. Gates took on with
Durnell. and Durnell had the winner I'M
de. his hat good four times out OF hve
for his patron. Not that Durnell didn
profit by this neat break himself. 1t
must be given to him that he probably
felt grateful toward the financier for hav-
ing been mainly instrumental In having
him restored to the turf after he, Dur
nell. had been ruled off along with Nc
Cafferty out in California couple of
years ago. But Durnell unquestionably
utilized his chance to profit, too. where
Mr.. Gates profited and that combination
of two. one with an unbustable bank roll
and the other with an almost weird
knowledge of where the winners were
going to pop, put many a high-notching
bookmaker on the hunt for fresh funds
last spring until the Jockey Club swung
in and told Mr.. Gates that he'd have to
behave with those big bets of his.
Virtually all of the knocks against
shady doings on the New York tracks
with which the New York papers were
were directed at Roots" Durnell. 1t
seemed as If everybody knew what Dur
nen was doingAeverybody except the
stewards. Many of the jobs were so
amazingly brazen that the rankest sup
porters and defenders of the game had
to throw up their hands. When Dur
nei1's own horses began to run in an ex-
/traordinarily bald in-and-out fashion away
csast spring. Durnell was quietly tipped
OF bS the turf authorities that it might
IN 9lpretty good thing for him to dis
pS5S of his horses and sort of get under
coveN If he reHshed the idea of sticking
arou9d. in good standing for a while
Theh Durnell did a raw thing that made
&c matter of the most acute surprise as
to how he could manage to get away
with it, He held frame-up sale of his
txhI \ all hnt, in nd hay
startef them as running under the name
of the "Burlingame stable although
l they still went to the post in Durnells
Nown colors! 1t was unique bit of de-
n fance--it couldn't have been stupidity
tpr whatever else 'they say" of Durnell,
Nobody has the effontery to bulge out on
TO the knocking line and say that he's
stupid or ever was stupid. 1t was mat
ter for establishment then. that Durnell
! wasn't brushed right off the turf at the
time he did this thing. But he wasn't.
and the turtles wondered. Even after
doing that. Durnell continued to run his
horaes IN a manner that would have
gair1e6 him credit as being a smart 'un
at the OLE Iron Hill track, but that. on
the New York tracks, constituted nothing
short of an out-and-out challenge to the
ruling powers in turfdom- Still the Jockey
Club, for some reason, then as now. per-
fectly unaccountable. refused to take up
the thrown-down gauntlet, and Durnell
was allowed to go on running his swell
collection of scientific equine in-and-out-
ers right down to the finish. The tip was
out, however. before the actual wind-up
that Durnell was slated to get the gate "
but II seems peculiar that this tip did
not reach Durnell in some authoritative
way before he spent practically the last
money he had to shoot his string OF
horses out to California.
1t is easy enough to become platitudi-
nous and to read homilies upon tie fate
of ruled-on man. but Durnell's
surely is the most illuminative case we've
had In a long period of time of the maxim
that II doesn't pay" to be shady Dur
nell gets this blow right between the
eyes when he hasn't thing "salted."
Despite his manipulations, he went all to
the bad along toward the end of the rae
ing season. His most carefully planned
coups, some of which had the customary
ace in the hole, went wrong and Durnell
was literally cleaned" While Gates was
still in the game. Durnell stringing along
with the millionaire, made a fortune with
in two months. All of this went. and
the Indian sign was on him when he had
10 dispose of his good horse Nealon. 1t is
difficult to resist the temptation to moral
ize with respect to the way the thing has
come out in the wash for this spick-and-
span little Durnell man. For. as
straightout matter of known fact. he is
one of the most astute. finished and ac-
complished turfmen in the United States.
He knows the game from Alpha to
Omega, having started in as jockey and