The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-03-07
Race Track Lingo Worse Than Greek



He was telling me how one of his
own horses was left at the post in
big race
"And there was L. he said when
the web went up. standing still with
my weight on my heels. rubberng over
the fence at the bunch of dinges sit
ting in tree outside the grounds
He meant that his horse had been
left flatfoOted when the barrier went
up, and that the horse in his abstrac.
ton had been gazing at cluster Of
darkies in the tree outside the track
grounds. But is it reasonable to SIM
pose that / editress of woman's page
could have known that without soma
calculation?
You We're standing still?' | said
to him. oh, then this wasn't a horse
race, but footrace. and you were
And again he had a perfectly legi-
innate occasion to throw his head back
and laugh.
well he said again. with an air
W pioiouhu uiSSuSt oNeI Tie IDclQent.
when the bunch hi, the top of the
bend. there was the jock on my Edam
sound asleep in the saddle. dreaming
of coin, and he never nudged himself
out of the coma till hunk of Camem-
bert belonging to Jimmy McCafferty
swung to the front and copied the
leading cush by four Salt Lake blocks
But is it possible l asked him.
for a jockey to really fall asleep ON
a horses back during a race
"Oh. there isn't any doubt. in the
world that, at the outset of that expe-
rience l was simply wonder as a COM
piler of racing stories
informing Glory"
| This Morning Glory of mine he
said, again describing one Of his hors.
es, could traipse a mile in nothing by
lantern light. but when he got the col
ors up he was a pond lily anchored to
the bottom of a muddy lake.
Those floral terms sounded pretty
enough but 1 had to get him to explain
| them, of course.
He was describing a famous 2-year.
old, very small horse, that developed
wonderful speed and weight-carrying
ability.
why he said, that little scrap
of a thing was only as big as a guinea
pig or a woodchuck or a chihuahua
| dog. but he could carry four members
| of the Fat Mems club and a bale of
hay in each saddlebag and then put
down five furlOngs quicker than a spot
| light could reach from the gallery to
the stage
His explanation. of course. modi-
fed the velocity of the 2-year-olds per-
Torrance immensely. but from the way
he first put it that little horse could
surely go some. as the boys say
1T didn't take me long, as a mat
ter of fact, to find out that the basis
of the racing patOis is a tremendous
but picturesque method of exaggera-
ton.
That fellow Mr. Ullman said to
me, abiding to starter whose work
he didn't like. couldn't start a fire in
a hawmow, with nineteen boxes of
| matches. Start race horses? He
couldn't start trolley cars
He was speaking of horse that he
considered Overrated.
THAT one beat Salvador? he ex-
claimed. derisively. Why. that plug
couldn't have beat bass drum if he
was standing on top of it.
He was trying to convey an idea
of how tired a field of horses were at
the finish of a cup race at two miles
and quarter.
They all had search warrants out
for holes in the fence he said They
We're leaning on each other in the
stretch like a layout of soused stu
dents at a stag dinner. Every one of
EN- was hollering for seventeen hours
of straight slumber. They were only
crawling, doing about half a knot a
week at the finish. They CROPPED along
like a bunch of migrating tree toads.
Aou Sooiuh see CHI uiONc. ol, ehey
were tired, all right
We'll. by the time was ready to turn
the compiling of racing stories over
to the publisher / knew something
about the new language. The worst
OF it was. when 1 had finished my
sessions with Mr.. Ullman l found my
self using those quaint racing terms
involuntarily in the commerce of daily
!ife they were so exquisitely pat to fit
some occasions, and l used to catch
my friends looking at me so strangely
when l did that"