Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-03-22
THE "HORSE BUG" TELLS HOW HE
IS GOING TO BEAT THE GAME AT
BENNING MEET-SOUNDS FAMILIAR
By CLARENCE L. CULLEN.

from the Nie-but say did You put the
cat out, and is the cellar door locked. and
you didn't leave the water running In the
bathroom. did you?
oh. well. maybe I'll always look like a
nickefs worth of crabmeat a la Newourg
IN brown paper bag, but l guess III
make me dream that some day I'll have
twelve bucks ION a million to one skate
thatll dance along to the wire like
cloud shadow Pickering over a meadow
Of new clover.
fear Of gloomy old age into horse bug.
He's wise.
He may be wearing wire in his shoes
in place of strings; he may be holding EN-
up behind with horseshoe nails instead of
buttons: he may be necking live ones for
the price Of a selfwashing rubber collar
but you can't scare him.
Some day, he knows-ye-eh-he's going
to beat 'em. He's going to avalanche an
ace note into a Pittsburg Phil summer
squash with four rubber bands around
it-when his day comes. Some old week
or other he's going to pick fourteen long
priced ones in. a row and make John W.
Gates look like somebody swabbng dishes
In the cellar OF a f1fteen-cent table d'hote.
You'll never lithia that acid out of the
horse bugs system, DO.
when you hear one of ~'em mutter,
after sloughing off hull tWo-spot in the
course Of an afternoons racing. .Aw. the
game can't be beat you don't want to
believe that he thinks that. He knows
better. He's just peevish. He knows
beat. Only that afternoon his foot slipped.
* X
why, say, I can hypnotic myself by
looking at dope chart. Here's that 200
to l baby that COPIED at Santa Anita,
Los Angeles. a little while ago. 1 hold
that dope sheet close to my nigh agate
and study it for a long time. After a
while 1 feel dead sure that if I'd been at
Santa Anita that afternoon I'd have had
at least seven clean bucks on that 200 to
baby to cop. That's what L would
have. Why, look at that breeding-Piece
o Cheese out of Lady RoQuefort! I'd
sure have tapped myself on q horse bred
that way even If he wasn't any more OIL
a locker than a Chihuahua dog.
And so pipe and pipe at that 200 TO 1
thing, and just know that if I'd been there
I'd have gone to that one with the price of
the kitchen oilcloth and the sink fittings.
Oh. 1 can make myself. believe any Old
thing. looking at the dope sheets.
Yep. and after some 50 to 1 thing has
smothered the 1 to high-notcher at the
Benning spring meeting don't l always
know, right after the numbers have gone
up that the 90 to 1 thing should have gone
won at that, and ought to've been played?
Ye-eh. and I can always make myself be-
lieve that 1 was just going to- play the
long one when somebody came along
and hit me on the wishbone and borrowed
a toothpicn Of me and got my attention
away from it.
When the red boards down and
they're paying off under the main tent
l know more about the ones that ought
;o've COPIED, and did cop. than anybody
else that ever crawled through a track
gate except the next horse bug you meet
\ +
'All the same, / love the old game, DO.
I just nachuily love to see the colors
flash in the sunlight-the colors that I've
played. I love to hear the merry hoop-la
of the jockeys-if the kid riding mine
hasn't lost his voice.
II sure am stuck on seeing the noble
steeds turning grandly into the stretch
if the one I've got my two bones on is in
front by as far as from here to Rock
vile.
''Oh. but it's the gorgeous sight TO see
'em plunging along like a troop OF cav
alry--if the soldier atop OF the one I'm
playing has got him under fourteen wraps
and With ninety-siX pounds left for the
finish.
Nothing on earth gives me such a'case
of the hip-hipyee- 8 the spectacle or
a steeplechase-after everything in it has
bobbled at the jumps except the one I've
got six iron men on at 80 to /.
Bette: than eating / like to see two SUI
perb specimens of the thoroughbred
hitch up for the final eXcruciating dash
to the W1re-When my ace in the mole is
that the one 1 haven't played has got
split hoof that will probably drop off be-
fore the sixteenth pole is reached.
"Ye-eh. it's just the gloriousest thing
to see. the long. lush grass a-waving in
the intield Of the Renning track-when
you know that it's not going to be YOU
that day to eat the grass.
"And the music of Haley's grand stand
band sounds good to you when you're
lining up back of Billy Shows book with
an I. 0. L. badge to read off to the pay
master. But, DO, it's the Chinese music
when you're out there on the concrete,
biting your hangnails and wondering
win'ell you didn't go to the one that
COPIED on the tapesky by the quivering
of his lower lip.
"Yes-sir-ee. the royalty bred thorough
bred sure Is the finest thing on stills
when he brings the carrots home to dad.
but when he pulls OFF that delayed-in-
thing. with your last batch
of dimes in the mitt of the man on the
pikers' line, why he's a candidate for but
tons made out Of gutta percha in Your es-
and the quicker the better.
IT sure have got the Society for the ID
lifting of Zambesiland backed OF the
boards for the sentimental junk when the
pay-off people are responding to my
orders; but I sure am the
Grabbed butch when the old game gives
me that gone feeling in the region OF the
pie belt.
But this is going to be my year. pal
and I know 1t. and If you happen to have
two bits about You that isn't employed
why l know where they put onions in the
steak they dish out. and
thanks. I'll see you out at the track
a-Monday. I've got two or three pipes
for Monday