Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-22
WHAT IS BEING SAID BY HORSEMEN
ABOUT THE RULING OFF THE TURF
OF BOOTS DURNELL-OTHERC CASES

I is one of the most highly regarded men
| in the owning-training business.
AS Ike Thompson. the Nestor of the
American bookmakers, said a while back.
| It's mighty easy for a turfman to be
straight-if he's born right"
! The whole business will certainly make
| for virtue, and lot of it, in the racing
| game next year. The ruling off of George
| Boles, the bookmaker. was pretty
| solemn sort of a warning for such chalk
ers as have been inclined to put up their
| little states when they've known all the
] time that they had an ace screened under
| the cuff, and it is predicted that the book
| makers VIII be walking a straighter line
next year than they ever have before in
American racing history. The jockeys
surely will have the fear of the turf rod
under their jackets when the trumpet
blows next year. The disturbance is by no
means over yet, it is understood. There
are some queer stories floating around
about some of the doings. during this past
season, of a certain accomplished jockey
who wasn't unknown by name to Boots
Durnell, and it is asserted upon what
seems to be the most solid authority that
this jockey will have his application for
the renewal of his license turned down at
me next meeting OF the Jockey Club.
Now, with one of the front-rank owners
warned off, the oWner-trainers have
! got their dose, and the shady ones will be
watching themselves with mighty care
full eye next year. it is prophesed.
Misbehavior. on the turf or anywhere
else, has the piper to pay these days.
The other day Grover Cleveland Fuller,
next to Tod Sloane, perhaps, the most
spectacular rider of the past fifteen
the other day, and he was unable to pay
the So fine imposed upon him by the
magistrate for being drunk and disor-
derby. This boy was a mastery horse
arn6 bod Il, IL Of r-ir1raJ
| literally beaten horses that even Sloane
couldn't surpass. Fuller could actually
| lift tired and all-done horses past the
Wire In every stage of a race Fuller was
judge of pace. a boy who knew how to
wait either in front or in the rear,
nurser of roguish cattle, a jollier of
sulkers, and finisher who perhaps never
had a superior in the saddle. But the
| boy would not behave. Whisky nailed
him right in the middle of his promising
and money-making career. as it nailed
Ike Murphy, Patsy McCue. and many
another promising race rider Fuliers
friends did everything for him in the eff
| fort to make him see where and how he
was making an idiot of himself. Tim Sui
| Ivan, no less, spent hours. days, weeks.
] not indirectly but personally. trying to
get Fuller to see that he was Grabbing
| his immense chance in life. But Fuller.
| a brainy race rider, didn't have the head
| to take heed. and he wasn't anywhere
near himself in normal steadiness on the
day when he had the bad accident that
shortened one of his legs, and made him
ineligible for the pigskin for the remain
der of his life. Fuller had tossed away
more than $1,000 up to that time, and
when they carried him to the hospital he
didn't have dollar Now he gets ar
rested for drunkenness over here every
/ little while, and he isn't ever in shape to
make good for the inconseQuential fines
that are ladled out to him by lenient mag
istrates.
Radtke is another boy who has thrown
away fine chance. He isn't as reckless
as Fuller vast would be hard for him
to be that-but he has got himself into
such shape through excuses that he can't
reduce below H. pounds without endan-
gering not alone his health, but his life.
and he is roaming around the California
tracks, getting only an occasional mount
on high-weighted horses, and not doing
any too we'll even with those. Yet this
boy had in him the making Of the cham
pion jockey of his time. Always a better
finisher than Walter Miller, Radtke also
possessed something that Miller never
had-an instructive judgment as to how
fast a horse was going under him and
how much the horse had left for the final
dash down to the tape. A lot of decent
chaps, like Bob McKeever, for example,
who had nothing whatever to gain
through Radtke's seeing things in the
right light, got around the boy when he
began to go bad and tried to make him
see how he was hashing his career. But
boy like, Radtke knew it all. He got
! into trouble with the turf authorities
more through pigheadedness and arro-
gance than through any actual miscon-
duct of shady nature. His riding abil-
ity began to fall away from him for the
simplest of all reasons, that he never be-
trayed even symptom that he considered
it worth his while to take care of him.
self. Now, practically down and out
he'll have to mooch around Europe, where
the weights are higher, trying to get
some owner to take him up. or else free
lance it over there. In the meantime
Walter Miller, who forged into the lime
light along about the same time as Radtke
did, is growing so fast that he'll probably
be out of the saddle good deal of the
time next season, and out of the game
altogether probably within year. But
Miller. the boy with a top piece, is worth
an easy quarter of a million today, and
therefore is in shape to blow smoke rings
in the teeth of destiny.