The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1936-12-03

AS I whirled down the highway,
with the orange, celery, and grape
fruit trucks missing me by inches,
could hear the money in my
pocket imploring me to hurry,
hurry.
"Get going, get going" 1t said.
Step on 1t, papa, or else we'll miss
that fire race and your chance to
lose some Of us on fat box terrier
with fiat feet will be gone"
I knew the money told the truth.
A race missed was money won, not
to mention precedents shattered.
AS the only man not to win money
on the dogs since Rim Tin Tin
passed to his reward (his reward,
have learned from confidential
source, consisted of two hambones
rampant on field of pine trees) I
could not afford to miss race.
You can imagine my Joy then,
when, at 8 o'clock, fifteen minutes
before the post time for the first
race, skidded to stop In the
parking lot and made for the mu-
tual window.
LET me have" I said to the Jesse
James descendant behind the grill,
"a ticket on Happy Memories in the
first"
mo dice" he said.
mot so sure as dice" laughed
with that infectious laugh Of mine,
but let me have the ticket lust
the same"
There's no betting tonight" he
answered. 1.-THE racing commission
says we can't"
"Well," asked, what are the
other 10000 customers out here for.
know the purpose of this track Is
to improve the breed, and lift the
canine standard very high, but still
imagine they came out here to
bet"
Then he told me the sad story.
The dog racing commission, which
Is composed Of the type Of men you
would expect to find on dog rae
ing commission land II you don't
know the type will tell you they
are the type of men who could not
make the boxing commission So
cially) had called off the opening
night without giving notice.
The reason was very technical,
that is, technical for dog racing
commission. At o'clock the OPEN
ing night, one of the commissioners
suddenly discovered he could read
q calendar.
Naturally this came in the nature
Of bombshell, and after motion
had been tabled to throw him out
on the ground that he was ringer,
the commissioner In question ex-
planned the Hollywood track already
had enjoyed its 8 legal days Of rae
ing In 1886, and must wait one
more day to fall into the 1887 calen-
dar, or, as he explained 1t, fiscal
year.
I'm not going to try to explain
this further. My only interest in
the matter, as explained earlier,
lay in the fact that 1t cost me los
ing ten bucks; go to the tracks to
lose. I pride myself on being the
next to wrongest guy on bets in the
United States. The No. man, as
far as I can figure by calculations
which even include the moon and
high tides, is Chick Endor, the in
ternational singer OF songs. Mr..
Endor was the man. as you will re-
member, who bet that Rome was
built in a day, and offered 10 to
that he was right.
Mr.. Endor also has two legs on
the cup, and we are betting rivals.
He was just as disappointed as I,
and when the track officials, just to
keep the crowd amused, ran four
schooling" races Ton which bets
were barreD said:
when you can't bet on the dogs
1t doesn't help to know they are
being run to improve the breed. I'm
all for improving the breed Of every
st. Bernard, Spaniel on the great
earth. but II can't bet would
rather stay at home and match Spot
and Rex and Beauty In a three-dog
race for the mailbox.
Copyright, 1896, by United Press