Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-07-21

Get rid of that one," was the order he
gave to his stable foreman.
You mean. to sell him." said the
prised foreman, a man who felt in his
heart that, after his years of arduous
splendor, Banquet was entitled to a rest
In the sweet pastures of his native land for
the balance of his days.
That's what l mean" said DWyer.
Banquet passed out of race-track knowl-
edge.
About a year later, Jack Mcdonald, the
kindly and dead-game bookmaker who was
killed along with q lot of other Americans
In that bad railway accident in England
last year, was in London. He spent an
evening at the Empire Music Hall, and at
midnight he summoned a cab in front of
that place for the drive to his hotel-the
Cecil.
Out of the darkness of the cab stand
across the way came a hanson, pulled by
brute that didn't look like cab horse.
AS the morse passed under the strong light
in front of the music hall Mcdonald. idly
waiting to step into the cab, gave a sudden
start
Look at that horse" he said to the man
he was with.
We'll. what about him?" inquired Nc
Donalds companion.
by =, it's Banquet, that's allr e1acu-
lated Mcdonald. in a tone of smothered
rage. and the kindly chaps face was
chalky with the strong feeling that surged
within him.
And that cab horse was Banquet, all
AA6AI. bduQuct, the One-tlnQo mueller OF
sugar Jumps from the soft hands Of Amer
lean princesses-Banquet dragging a creaky
night-liner hanson through the greasy
streets of London, hauling registering Brit
the British capital!
Mcdonald told me about it when he re-
turned from his European tour that au-
tumn.
The old chap knew me-" he said when
I went up to him and rubbed his nose
wed been great stall pals when he was
racing in the states. He remembered me
all right, and nuzzled my coat and made
much of me- Did ride in the hansom
with him to pull me? You ought to know
me better than to ask me that. I did not
Me let Banquet. that I'd seen kicking up
his heels as a weanlng down on the Ken
lucky farm. that l stood about and saw
saddled the first time he ever faced the
barrier as baby two-year- old, that won
hundred thousand dollars for me on two
races alone-rne let that fellow drag me
dirty cab. in the middle of the night? For
get 1t! I'd have bought him from the cab
man and paid anything in or out Of reason
Tor him. at that. but the old boy was all
In; shadow of himself, and a mere skele-
ton: and he'd never have stood the voyage
back to the states. So 1 called another
cab. The jehu driving Banquet curled his
lash around the old horses legs, and away
he went a-bobbing into the darkness and
me with lump in my throat as big as an
Alabama gourd. I heard that he died not
long after saw him in the cab shafts,
don't see how a man can ever have airy
bit of luck thatll treat kind and great
horse the way Mike treated Banquet, do
your
1t is curious to remember that Mike
Dwyer never did have one days luck from
the hour that Banquet first backed into
the shafts of London cab.
There's another side of the picture
Crickmore the man and Crickmore the
horse.
Every man who has visited the paddock
at the Benning track will remember the
pleasant faced old man always dressed in
gray clothes and with a fat-topped derby
of an olden vintage, who shakes the mar
bles out of the leather cup after he's
weighed out the jockeys to see how they
shall line their horses up at the post That
fine old gentleman is H. G. Crickmore, the
clerk of the scales at Benning and at some