_He Was Thought to Be a No-Account Cripple, but He Proved Himself to Be
"All Horse" When Called Upon._
"A friend of mine who came here from Chicago for the Bennings meeting
was telling me about that Jim McCleevy mule," said an old-time owner of
thoroughbreds who is wintering a string of jumpers and breaking a bunch
of yearlings out at the Bennings track. "That makes a queer story, and
there are some strange things connected with the thoroughbred game, at
that. This McCleevy horse wasn't worth a bag of moist peanuts at the
beginning of the present racing season. He couldn't beat a fat man. He
had never been in the money. He was a legitimate thousand-to-one shot in
any company. He was the candidate for the shafts of a brick cart, when
by some odd chance he passed into the possession of a nice young woman
who was going to school somewhere in the State of Iowa. The girl's uncle
was mixed up some way or another with the turf, and he bought the
McCleevy plug for a joke, paying a few dollars for him. In a spirit of
fun he wrote to his niece that he had bought Jim McCleevy in her name,
and that the horse belonged to her and would be run in her interest. The
young woman didn't know the difference between a race-horse and a
chatelaine bag. She was an orphan, and struggling to get an education
for herself. Her ambition was to take a course at a woman's college,
but, up to the time of this incident, which lasted throughout the spring
and summer, her hope of putting this ambition over the plate was pretty
shadowy, and it looked like it was up to her to get a job teaching a
country school in order to support herself. But she wrote to her uncle
that she accepted the gift of the no-account racer with gratitude, and
inquired if the horse could not trot right fast, for, if so, she might
be able to dispose of him to some well-to-do farmer in her neighborhood.
"Jim McCleevy was attached to the string of a good trainer, who saw at
once that the horse had been underestimated, that he had been badly
handled, and that it would be worth the effort to try to make something
of him. He spent two or three weeks monkeying with the skate and fixing
him up, and then he sent him out one morning with a lummux of a stable
boy on his back and put the watch on him. Jim McCleevy breezed a mile in
1:44, fighting for his head at the finish, and two days later he was
slapped into a selling race at a mile and a sixteenth, with light
weight, a bum apprentice lad up, and all kinds of a price, for there
were some good ones in the race, which was at the Harlem track, in
Chicago. The girl's uncle scattered a few dollars around the ring on the
mutt, all three ways, and McCleevy came home on the bit. That was the
beginning of McCleevy. He was put into a couple of races a week at a
mile and more, at the Harlem and Hawthorne tracks, during the entire
racing season at Chicago, and he won race after race, no matter how they
piled the weight penalties up on him. When he didn't win he broke into
the money, and as there was always a good price on him, seeing that
almost every time he raced he was pitted against horses that seemed to
outclass him, the uncle of the girl who owned him got some of the money
every time. He parleyed the money that he won for his niece on Jim
McCleevy's first race, and he got it back and a bunch besides every
time. The fame of Jim McCleevy spread around Chicago, and a Chicago
newspaper man went down to Iowa to interview the young woman who owned
the horse. She told him, artlessly, that while she abhorred
gambling--well, she certainly did enjoy the prospect of being enabled to
complete her education. Her uncle deposited between $8000 and $9000 in
her name, the amount he had won for her in purses and bets on Jim
McCleevy, at the wind-up of the racing season, and the horse, which
developed quite a bit of real class, still belongs to her.
"Odd, isn't it, that an underestimated race-horse should hop out and not
only give a nice girl that had never so much as has stroked his sleek
neck a chance to fulfil her ambition for an education, but win her a
start in life that'll probably make her one of the eligible girls in the
State of Iowa? But I recall a queerer one than that--how a cast-off crab
suddenly developed into a race-horse and paid off a mortgage on a
church.
"That happened out at Latonia four years ago. I was racing a few of my
own out there at the time, and saw the affair from the beginning to the
wind-up. I'll have to duck giving the names, for the good man who
profited by the sudden development of the nag he accidentally became
possessed of is still the pastor of a flock that congregates in a pretty
little debt-free, brick and stone Roman Catholic church on the outskirts
of Cincinnati.
"There was an old trainer hanging around the Latonia barns at that time
who was in hard luck from a whole lot of different points of view. I'd
known him on the metropolitan tracks years before, and he had been, in
his day of prosperity, a good fellow and a horse-wise man, if ever one
chewed a straw. When his health went back on him, however, six or seven
years ago, and he couldn't personally attend to his work--he ran an open
training stable--it was all off with him. The strings that he had been
handling were taken away from him by the owners and put in other hands,
and he went up against the day of adversity with a rattle. He had a few
horses of his own, but these proved worthless, and most of them were
finally taken away from him to pay feed bills. On top of it all he
developed locomotor ataxia, and when I got out to the Latonia barns,
four years ago, he could barely move around. How he contrived to exist I
don't know, but I guess the boys chipped in a dollar or so every once in
a while for the old man. The only horse that he had left when I reached
Latonia with my little bunch was an old six-year-old gelding that was a
joke. Well, call him Caspar. The mention of Caspar's name made even the
stable-boy grin. Caspar looked a good deal like Diggs, that camel horse
that's pulling down the purses now in New Orleans. He was all out of
shape, with a pair of knees on him each as big as your hat; of all the
bunged up, soured, chalky old skates that ever I looked over, this
Caspar gelding was the limit. Yet he had been a pretty good two-year-old
and a more than fair three-year-old. He had won four races as a
two-year-old, and six as a three-year-old, but he was campaigned and
drummed a heap, and when the old man shot him as a four-year-old Caspar
could just walk, and that's all. He was a cripple from every point of
the compass. He was chronically sour and sore, and he was as vicious and
ugly as the devil, into the bargain. He never got anywhere near the
money as a four and five-year-old, and he hadn't been raced at all as a
six-year-old, when I first clapped an eye on his rheumatic old shape.
But the old man was a sentimentalist in his way, and he couldn't stand
the idea of selling a horse that he had taken care of as a baby to some
truck driver to be overworked and abused. So he hung on to Caspar, fed
him, nursed him and took care of him generally, just as if the old plug
was making good for all of this attention. Caspar was a standing gag
around the Latonia stables.
"'Wait'll I joggle Caspar under the string by four lengths in the
Kentucky Derby!' a monkey-faced apprentice jockey would say solemnly to
the other kids, and then they'd all holler.
"Well, about a month after I struck Latonia--it was then getting on
toward midsummer--the old trainer in hard luck who owned Caspar took to
his bunk, not to get up any more. He only lasted two weeks. Two days
before he died he sent for an old Irish priest that he had known for a
number of years. The priest was the pastor of that little brick and
stone church on the outskirts of Cincinnati that I spoke about. The old
trainer had been a good Catholic all his life, and he received the last
offices of his faith. Then he said to the priest:
"'Father, there's a crabbed, battered-up old dog of mine over at Latonia
that I'll make you a present of. He's worth about one dollar and eighty
cents, but he was a good racing tool when he was young, and I've never
felt like turning him loose to hustle for himself. He's crippled up
some, but you might get him broken to harness, so that he could haul
your buggy around. I wish you'd take him and see that he doesn't get the
worst of it. Caspar was pretty good to me a few times when I was up
against it.'
"When the old man turns up his toes and dies the kindly priest came over
to the barns to see if he could get any assistance in the way of putting
our old hard-luck pal under the ground. He got it, of course, and enough
for a tombstone besides. While he was at the stables the father thought
he might as well have a look at the piece of horse-flesh that had been
presented to him by the old man. So one of the trainers escorted him to
Caspar's stall.
"'Could he ever be made any good for driving purposes?' the priest asked
the trainer, who smiled.
"'He'd kick a piano-mover's truck into matchwood the first clatter out
of the box,' replied the trainer.
"'I'll just let him stay over here for awhile until I decide what to do
with him,' said the priest, and he went back to Cincinnati and buried
the old trainer.
"Well, a couple of mornings later a fresh stable-boy who had just got a
job in one of the barns put a bridle and saddle on old Caspar and took
him for a breeze around the course just for fun. It was just at dawn,
and a lot of us trainers were watching the early morning work of the
horses. It struck me when Caspar passed by the rail where I was standing
that the old devil looked mighty skittish, and was doing a lot of
prancing for a hammered-to-death skate, with bum knees and all sorts of
other complaints. About a minute later there was a yawp all along the
rail.
"'Get next to that old Caspar!' a lot of the trainers shouted. I looked
over toward the back-stretch, and there was the old skate with his head
down, eating up the ground like a race-horse. We all jerked out our
watches just as he flashed by the five-furlong pole and put them on him.
It was amazing to see the old mutt make the turn and come a-tearing down
the stretch. If he didn't do that five furlongs in 1:02, darn me. All of
our watches told the same story, and there was no mistake about it. When
he passed the judges' stand Caspar wanted to go right ahead and work
himself out, but we all hollered at the boy to pull him up. The kid
stopped the old gelding with difficulty. Caspar wanted to run, and he
had a mouth on him as hard as nails.
"We got together and talked about Caspar. We were dumbfounded, and
didn't know what to make of that exhibition of speed. Then a trainer who
was, and still is, noted throughout the country as the most skilful
horse-patcher that ever got into the game spoke up.
"'The old devil's just come back to himself, that's all there is about
it,' he said. 'There are a lot of sprints in his old carcass yet. All he
needs is some patching. If he'll run like this work he's just done in
five-furlong dashes, there's a chance for a slaughter with him. I'm
going to ask the father to let me handle him and see if he can't be
oiled up.'
"The trainer went over to Cincinnati that same morning and saw the
priest.
"'Father,' said he, 'I don't want to get a man of your cloth mixed up
with the racing game, but I think I can do something with that old
racing tool, the old man bequeathed to you.' Then he told the priest
about Caspar's phenomenal work that morning.
"'Bless me!' said the good man, 'I fear it would not be seemly for me
to'----
"'Oh, that end of it'll be all right, father,' said the trainer. 'If I
find I can do anything with the old rogue I'll shoot him into a dash
under my own colors, and you won't be entangled with the thing a little
bit. It won't cost you anything to let me try him out, and if I find
that he'll do I'll get my end of it by putting down--er--uh--well. I
won't lose anything anyhow.'
"Well, when he left the kindly man of the cloth he had the permission to
see what could be done with old Caspar. "'Let me know how you progress,'
the priest had asked him.
"The trainer seeing a chance to make a killing--and we all vowed
ourselves to secrecy about the matter--went to old Caspar. He was a
nag-patcher, as I say, from the foot-hills, and the way he applied
himself to the reduction of Caspar's inflammations, and to the tonicking
up in general of the old beast, was a caution to grasshoppers. And it
came about that early morning's work of Caspar's that had surprised us
so was no flash in the pan at all. The old 'possum had somehow or
another recovered his speed all of a sudden, in addition to a
willingness to run, in spite of his infirmities. At the end of two weeks
Caspar, as fine a bit of patched-work as you ever saw, was ready. The
trainer went over to Cincinnati and told the father so.
"'Well,' inquired the priest.
"'He's going to run in a five-furlong dash day after to-morrow,' said
the trainer. 'And he'll walk. It is a copper-riveted cinch--er-uh--I
mean, that is, Caspar will win, you see. It'll be write your own ticket,
too. Any price. In fact when the gang sees his name among the entries,
they'll think it's a joke.'
"'My son,' said the father, with a certain twinkle lurking in the corner
of his eye, 'gaming is a demoralizing passion. Nevertheless, if this
animal, that came into my possession by such odd chance, possesses
sufficient speed to--er'----
"'Oh, that's all right, father,' said the trainer and he bolted for it.
"As the trainer had said to the priest, there was an all-around chuckle
the following afternoon when the entry sheets were distributed and it
was seen that Caspar was in the five-furlong dash the next day. For a
wonder, not a word had got out about the patching job that had been in
progress on the old horse, nor about his remarkable work. The stable
lads and railbirds who were on kept their heads closed and saved their
nickels for the day of Caspar's victory.
"Well, to curl this up some, the field that we confidently expected
Caspar to beat was made up of nine rattling good sprinters--one of them
was so good that his price opened and closed at 4 to 5 on. Caspar was
the rank outsider at 150 to 1. We all got on at that figure, the bookies
giving us the laugh at first, and only a few of them wise enough to rub
when they suspected that there was something doing. The trainers',
railbirds', and stable-boys' money that went in forced the old skate's
price down to 75 to 1 at post time. A number of us took small chunks of
100 to 1 in the poolrooms in Cincinnati--wired our commissions over. The
old horse favored his left forefoot a trifle in walking around to the
starting pole, and that worried us a bit, for he'd been all right on his
pin the night before. We didn't do any hedging, however, but stood by to
see what was going to happen. All of us, of course, had enough down on
him to finish third to pull us out in case he couldn't get the big end
of the money.
"It was a romp for Caspar. If I'd tell you the real name of the horse
you'd remember the race well. Caspar, with a perfect incompetent of a
jockey on his back, jumped off in the lead, and was never headed,
winning, pulled double and to a walk, by three lengths. The bookies made
all colors of a howl over it, but their howls didn't go. They had to
cough. It was the biggest killing that bunch of Latonia trainers,
including myself, had ever made, and there wasn't a stable boy on the
grounds that didn't have money to cremate for months afterward.
"After the race the trainer who had patched old Caspar up for the
hogslaughtering--he was close on to $15,000 to the good, and he didn't
have me skinned any, at that--hustled over to the priest's house.
"'Father, the plug made monkeys of 'em,' is the way he announced
Caspar's victory.
"'Truly?' said the priest.
"'Monkeys,' repeated the trainer, and then he pulled out a huge new
wallet that he had bought on the way to the priest's residence. He
handed the wallet to the father. 'When I was here, a couple o' days
ago,' said the trainer, looking interestedly out of the window, 'I had
along with me a fifty-dollar bill that, feeling pretty prosperous that
morning, I intended to hand to you to be distributed among the poor of
the parish--used to be an acolyte and serve mass myself, a good many
years ago, when I was a kid. Well, I forgot to pass you the fifty, you
see, and so I invested it in--er-uh--a little matter of speculation, to
your account, so that it amounts to--er-uh--well, I understood there's a
bit of a mortgage on your church, you know."
"The priest opened the wallet and counted out seven one thousands, one
five hundred and one fifty-dollar bill. The trainer had put the $50 down
on Caspar for the priest--without the father's sanction or countenance,
of course--at 150 to 1.
"'Well,' went on the trainer, anxious to talk so as to save any
questions as to the nature of his speculation, 'it certainly would have
done your heart good if you could have seen that old nag cantering down
the stretch'----
"'It did,' said the father, with a smile. 'It is no sin, I conceive, for
even a man of my cloth to watch noble beasts battling for the supremacy,
there being, I take it, nothing cruel in such contests. I saw the race.'
"Old Caspar was wound up by that race. He went to the paddock as sore as
a boil, all of his old infirmities breaking out with renewed strength,
and he was turned out to grass and died comfortably two years ago. If he
could have known, it might have cheered his declining days to realize
that he had paid off the mortgage on a nice little brick and stone
edifice of worship on the outskirts of Cincinnati."