The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-27
MOST DARING COUP OF JOHN W. GATES Won Close to Million On
 Royal Flush" CLEANED UP ENGLAND His We'll Planned Coup Was Far the Greatest and Most Successful
 Ever Seen on the
 Turf
CLEANED UP ENGLAND

him the wagering of vast sums on the races was but one of the incidents Of his days worl-perhaps the least. There was ] Wall street in the morning and until | o'clock. the race course in the later after noon, whist or faro in the evenings-ali of them entered Into with zest and houy- l ancy that might indicate that in none was the purpose anything other than rec reation.
 Other plungers on the turf there were who at times equaled in volume the spec ulation indulged in by Mir Gates, but with ! them betting was their whole existence There was "Plunger' Walton, for exam l ple. who made of wagering a business l there was Mike" Dwyer, who had Lis l whole being in horses and in racing; there was Riley Grammar. whose passion foI gambling was so great that he frequently . had no bank account, carrying about with :, him fortunes in cash that he might al ways be ready for a hazard, and there was .sPittsburg Phil" who organized a : corps of assistants and through them en- d,avored to reduce horseracing to an ex- , act science.
 These men were widely different In man. ] ner. if not in purpose. from Gates. With , them racing-and the betting end in par ticular-was their sole aim Their for tunes were wholly tied up in it or depen- dent upon it. His business was apart from the turf, though he brought to his transactions on the turf the same snrewd Judgment that had made him successful | elsewhere In the fortunes which he won and lost, and then regained, 1t would be most difficult. if not impossible, to balance up that section of his balance and loss ac- count which dealt with racing
 His most daring and equally his Uost successful coup upon the turf was maoe in England. He. with John A. Drake, in 1890. planned an invasion of the English turf They took over stable of Amer ican horses. with Enoch Wishard for trainer and Lester Reiff and Johnny Rein for jockeys. All their stable hands, too, exercise boys and rubbers, were Ameri- can Wishard at one time had been the partner of John J. McCaferty, and sprang into fame both as trainer and manipu- lator when the firm won nearly slO,ooO over the victory of Queenie Trowbridge, at the new Monmouth park course in 1890.
 Compared with Wishard a deaf mute would be a riot of conversation and con fldence Wishard would talk on anything in the world except horses-and he could talk well on almost any subject. He had and still has in his home at Flatb lsh a library that attests good taste in liter ature but you would search in vain for any book therein relating to the horse The only subject on which Wishafd was not posted was the theatre, and that N as because he could not be up until mid night and astr again with the dawn. The Reiff boys lived with him, and grew up as he wished they should They were Ter feet horsemen, but extremely reticient
 No better combination for the carrying out of a coup could have been assembled. Wishard was to train and plan and Gates and Drake were to see that the plans, If successful were profitable. They went over in the autumn Of 1899 that their horses might be accllmated for the cam paign of 1900 While they were awaiting the coming of the season Wishard was not satisfied with the condition of his horses or with some Of the weights as- signed. He decided to buy a fair handi cap horse and take chances on improving him. He was not interfered with and purchased the Irish bred horse Royal Flush, then six years old, by Fayo, out of Flush. He was sound and had been campaigned with some success by his previous owner.
 It was decided to point him for the fa- nous Stewards Cup, which was to be run at Goodwood on July 31 and into which he previously had been ptchforked at ! stone 13 pounds. III pounds In the same race was Americus, owned by Rich- ard Croker. Americus had raced with dis tinguished success in this country as Rey del Carreres, and had been purchased by MT. Croker from Lucky Baldwin Americus was the favorite. week or so before the race Gates had sent a substan- tial commission on Americus. Gates ,ater said the commission was in the nature of a hedge. His critics said it was rig ging' of the market. There is now nc reason to doubt that Gates was truthful in his statement but also that his act had the natural result of raising the price on Royal Flush for, although the horse ran in the name and colors of J. A Drake, il was known that Gates, If not an actual partner. was in possession of every fac, that Drake knew.
 The Stewards Cup, though only ovel the six furlong distance, was at that time and for many years before, one of the big betting races in England. Future books of practically astounding value were made on it. Commissions running into the thousands of pounds were accepted Gates organized the preliminaries to the cour with that rare skill In guarding against premature disclosure that had made him famous in Wall street. On the Tuesday before the running of the race he had commissioners at a certain hour present wagers on Royal Flush in every book makers establishment, not only in every big city in England, but also in Belgium, where perhaps there is as much ante post betting done there is in England itself. These wagers were put down si- multaneously-the bulk of them in London and in Antwerp. They cut the price of Royal Flush from 66 to to Il to ?. with the money averaging a trife better than 25 to l.
 The bookmakers, though they all felt the commission to be tremendous one were anxious to accommodate MT. Gates. and accepted what was offered Few hookmakers can resist the temptation of taking ready money. Besides each of them felt he could Hay off some of his commission with his brother pencilers TO their amazement they discovered tbere was no refuge. Everybody all over Eng land had been loaded to the g,In,yaIes with the money simultaneously. Antwerp houses were appealed to and they were filled. They were seeking relief them selves. Then it dawned on them that thev were hooked up for the biggest rea1S, money coup that the British turf ever had known.
 Experts in the big betting clubs ga, down to figuring and, when on the night before the running of the race fhe ,e turns had come in, 1t was found that inc Gates commission alone would not foo, I'D less than S700,0O0 and might go to sS0o b0o That put al lthe betting records of the centuries into the riscard It ex- ceeded by nearly quarter of lnilIio, dollars the loss sustained by the spend thrift Lord Hastings when Henry Chapin. who had sworn to ruin him, won the Derby with Hermit. Of course there could