Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-11
WINNING BETS HURTS MORE
THAN LOSING
MANY DIE ON TRACK BEFORE
cAsHINe TICKETS
Celebrations Win In the Mud at Ascot
Caused Club to Keel Over
as He Saw Long Shot
Cop


ter-in at a little sky-limit poker fiesta
with bunch of his cronies
The colonel had been a trailer through
out most of the session. He couldn't fill
hay bin with jimson weed. The papers
were swirling in every direction but his.
His was but to chip and grin. He
couldn't get anything, and they all made
merry at his expense
Came the inevitable hour when they
were playing that last round of jacks be-
fore dispensing, and the colonel, in pick
ing up his tickets one by one when the
jackpot before the last one of the seance
was being dealt, was observed by some
of those present to be some trembly in
his movements with his hands.
He had license to be that way. The pa
pers he picked up that way one by one,
were powerful lockers. four of them. The
four were the ten, Jack, queen and king Of
hearts The colonel. under the gun,
passed, as of course he had to, in fear
and trembling that nobody would crack
it. But cracked it was and boosted, too,
and when it got around to the colonel he
did his share of boosting-as who
wouldn't with that line of stuff ?-aSd
the pot was a nicely built one when 1t
came time to draw leaflets.
The colonel remarked to the dealer in a
husky voice that he'd take that one, and
when he picked it up he suddenly paled.
1t was the one--the ace of hearts. The
old gentleman gazed at 1t wi a whiten-
ing face for a minute and then fell back,
limp. His cronies hoped to his aid. but
it was too late. Col Simms' heart had
stopped beating utterly in the tremendous
excitement of filling that royal flush.
and nothing in the world could be done
for him.
The death of the old gentleman in that
curious way, in the moment of victory,
recalls the fact that most hight-notch
gamblers believe that the excitement Is
ten times greater and more difficult to
endure or conceal when a big bet is won
than when huge one is dropped. They
declare that a piece of sudden good luck
is more dangerous to a man who has any
thing wrong with his heart than a sud-
den slam of the worst kind of bad luck.
Man Drops Dead
Ten years ago this coming autumn a
man dropped dead in the betting shed of
the Benning track. sizeable winning it
st. Louis man who was following the
ponies and thoroughly used to the game.
1t was a three-horse race, with Hand
press, the rank favorite, and Nabob and
Tappan both outsiders, considered to
have no chance with Handpress. Nabob
took it, and this man from st. Louis had
$500 on that one-the last money he owned
In the world. too, 1t was afterward ascer-
tanned He was up behind George
Wheelock's cashier to collect, when he
suddenly reeled, and before anybody could
more than break the force of his fall he
was stretched on the floor of the ring as
dead as a nail. They found Identifying
papers on him and Wheelock sent the
amount of his win to his people in st.
Louis.
Over a. the Empire City track the other
afternoon a bunch of turfmen fell to talk
ing about this Huntington incident, in
which the old colonel made his final CASH
in after filling his royal flush.
II don't know by personal observation
how 1t works as to poker" said Billy
Snow, never having seen man die in a
poker game-without being piped out by a
gun In the other fellows hand, that is;
but I've seen enough instances of it on the
race tracks to be convinced that 1t is a
sound theory that winning hurts excit-
able men more than losing. To put it in
another way the strain on the big winner
is heavier than the tug on the big loser
I've seen men make tremendous losings
on race tracks-losings that meant the
whole down-and-out thing to them-and
the only one of these that ever knew to
die was q man who was ready to die, any,
how, from consumption.
"On the other side, I've seen at least
half dozen people, some of them husky
and robust looking, die suddenly on race
tracks in the very moment of triumph af-
ter having pulled down winnings such as
they'd never dreamed of before.
''It may be that this is because most
race track people are more used to losing
than they are to winning. I know that in
my own case the excitement following a
| tidy win especially an unexpected one, is
| heap greater than the excitement conse-
quent upon a big lose-out.
"The most remarkable case 1 ever saw
of quick cash-in following a big win on
race track was that Of Club Rinkle, a
well known badge horse owner and tout
on the California tracks, three winters
| ago at the Ascot track in Los Angeles.
1.-THE game at the San Francisco tracks
had been breaking bad for Club for a
good many years. for the track detec-
| tives had got after him for touting, and
for two years he was kept out of the
San Francisco track grounds altogether.
| Upon his solemn promise that he'd flag
the touting end of 1t he was allowed to
enter the Ascot track at Los Angeles on
his badge when the winter racing began
there three years ago.
"But, as touting was Clubs strong
hold, and, in fact his only way of getting
| by on a track, he wasn't doing a thing,
and he was all but a bum when fortune
came along and hit him a wallop that
knocked him smack into the next world.
'"This occurred on the day when old
Celebration copped his mud race with the
opening price of 100-played down to 30
against him. Celebration, at that time,
after his long campaigning was plug
that couldn't travel fast enough on a
usually dry fast track like Ascot to keep
himself warm. But he was Awkin' s
'oss In the mud, although that wact was
little known around the Ascot track. for
| toss in the mud, although that fact was
Celebration had been out of the public eye
for long time, anyhow.
"The field that Celebration went UP
against that day was made up of the real
good horses at the Los Angeles track,
twelve of them, and, as the track was
hard and fast--the same kind of track
as that on which old Celebration had
been beaten sixteenth of a mile only
couple of days before-the bookies
chalked him up at 100 to 1.
"Ten minutes before Celebrations field
was due to go to the post one of those
Japanese current drizzles set in, with
out the sun even being obscured. II
didn't look as If A. meant to rain much,
and only the dead weather-wise around
the track figured on the deluRe soon to