The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-28
HARD LUCK YARNS TOLD BY HORSEMEN Even Keen Traders Make Mis-
 takes Sometimes BILLY GAR1H'S EXPERIENCE Loses $500 and Mare Through Being creedy-Two-Year-old's Only
 Race-sculIy Buys
 Dead Mare.
BILLY GAR1H'S EXPERIENCE

 Garth, the keenest of the modern school of Virginia horsemen, knows as much about horse trading as anybody He was talking about some of the queer
 phases of horse dickering the other night.
 There are pretty nigh as many hard luck stories in horse trading as there are in horse racing" he said. "The worst of it is that a horseman will often involun- tarily hand himself a hard paste. I've done that myself, not once, but often. Once l had a mare-shifty third rate sprinter, but a right good proposition for the minor circuits-that a well to do man from my state who wanted to get into racing had his eye on He came along l to the farm early in the spring, before | the racing season had begun, to look the l mare over.
 T hadn't taken her up yet, but her record for the previous season wasn't so l bad. had the mare saddled and brought out, with a coon boy astrde for a jog. Perfectly sound, is she?' the man | who wanted to get into racing asked me, l as the mare trudged around the grounds. As a new flute, said l. Never walked lame step in her life and eats like a hired man. Sound as a taw agate |" What you asking for the mare?' he asked me.
 1.-Two thousand flat, and not the price ] of a cigarette under that, said I. " Give you fifteen Hundred right there ] where you stand said he, producing his roll and beginning to strip off yellows. :" Couldn't think of it. said l. Might 1 as well put your money back in your clothes. The first three purses the mare 1 hauls down this season will give me if | teen hundred and she'll still be mine. If 1 she doesn't traipse away with nine or ten purses this year I'll eat her
 | He went right ahead counting out 1 hundred dollar bills. Finally he had got 1 fifteen of the hundreds sorted out and he put the rest of his wad away. Here's your fifteen hundred Bill, said he, trying to hand me the money. 1 I'll send one of my boys over for her. She's mine as she stands, eh? Here take this money. I'm tired of holding It. You can train her for me yourself But l she's my mare from this minute, and he | tried to slip the roll into my coat pocket.
 i've got to own up to it, but I'm as | pig-headed as any Yankee. And this
 "The mare was crazy with fear of those dred why, he'd soon do better than that. | " You Mose! I yelled out to the coon | boy on the mare, making a funnel of | my hands. Take that mare back to the shed!
 '"That move of course, you see, was only to show my friend that I meant it. though I didn't, and fifteen hundred was more than right for the mare-and to l gouge my price out of inn
 l Well, when I yelled that way at the l dinge boy he wheeled the mare suddenly. and her head knocked against a project | ing branch of a peach tree that was cov-
 cred with blossoms A great shower of the blossoms fluttered down upon the mares head, soaring her.
 l It,aa t1r1 1la1 xx,ltl I,
 bird shot. Then she got her teeth down
 on the bit and hopped for it.
 Gentleman the way that mare ploughed up my farm The crazy coon boy dropped the reins and hung on around her neck. Then, panic hitting him as she made straight for a high board fence he slid off, backward. .The mare, crazy with fear of those | fool peach blossoms, tried to take the fence, head down. But she'd never been
 asked to do anything over the sticks. | Anyhow the board fence was seven foot high.
 1 "She plunged at 1t, hit the top scantling l with her forelegs and fell back. both of | those forelegs broken had to shoot her
 on the spot. For being pig-headed like | a Tank, I was out a nice mare and s1500
 I could have saved the $500 anyhow, by | letting 1t remain in my pocket when my | friend had slipped the bills in there, and | the mares loss would have been his, for
 that's the way its done In horse trad ing-bargain strike bargain stick l Another time a Washington man
 wanted to hand me sl000 for an unraced
 two-year-old in my barn--this was a blt
 after the spring meeting at Bennings haC l begun. The colt was some undersized
 but shlfty and quick breaker. He was
 a weed, all the same. and s1000 was a
 whole lot for nina great big whole lot
 ''The man that wanted him, though
 seemed to be pretty much on the soft side with his money, and so l figured
 that I might as we'll do little better on the dicker if there was any doing It. | I knew that my little weed that inc | wanted could beat a good deal of the | two-year- truck around Bennings that spring, and l figured that if I could droT
 him into a two-yeaT-old purse that looked
 easy. why, l might get race out ol | him-never forgetting the purse going
 with tho race, son-and then be in posi- | tion to ask a leetle more for him. So | said I to the man who wanted my colt
 CT always like to give the baby two | year-ods one run, anyhow, in my own
 colors before disposing of them. Now
 this Is a nice little colt Suppose yot
 buy him after l run him in my owr | name once
 ".For what-the s100o oreredY he
 asked me, for he was considerably more
 than himself.
 | 'Well-er-we'll talk price after tho | race said l, but the smallest figure, oi | course, will be that 5000 of yours. Un- | derstand?'
 | He understood all right, and laughed
 "'You like to give yourself these nice | large red apples, don't you% said he. But 1 I'm pretty fond of that kind of fruit my
 self. However, I'll give you a shade, see | ing as how you like shades. You car | race him once-rm buying him his | looks and his works anyhow, and one | race isn't going to tell anything. After | the race I'll give you the pat 5000 for
 him-that is of course if he comes out
 of the race all right
 "I had to agree, of course, after find | ing out that he wasn't so soft as I'd fig
 ured. Anyhow, I'd gained one point-the
 chance to win one purse with the colt. l So l waited until l could stick the little 1 chap into a two-year-old four furlong
 sprint in which there was nothing at all
 to beat; and into that sprint he went.
 "He got off wedged between a couple | of horses, and the three together. lean-
 ing on each other and packing each other
 together like salt herring in a barrel, | couldn't make any progress. The re- | suit was that they all got stepped on by
 the horses behind.
 About everything in the race took a
 turn at stepping on the hooks of my lit- | tie thousand dollar thing. The boy had
 to pull him up and walk him back to the | barn. His hind feet looked as If he'd | been trying to do dagger dance on | them