_How the Incredulity of a Lot of Bookmakers Was Turned Into Gasping
Astonishment._
A mixed party of turf followers in Washington for the Bennings meeting,
and Washington men about town, had a cafe talk the other night about
some things that have happened in former years on running tracks,
legitimate and outlaw, in this neighborhood.
"When the outlaw track over at Alexander Island, across the Potomac, was
running a few years back," said a New York player, "I came down here
from the wind-up meeting in New York one fall to see if there was
anything in the game in these parts. Then, as now, I was playing, and
not laying. So this Alexander Island happening that I'm going to tell
you about didn't bother me any, bad as it knocked a lot of the books.
"I got here before the Alexander meeting began. A couple of days before
the game was to be on, while I was in the Pennsylvania avenue
refreshment headquarters of the boys who came here from New York and
other tracks to write the tickets, a seedy-looking chap, who looked as
if the elements had conspired to make him smoke a bum pipe in the game
of life for a long time previously, walked in and edged around to the
back room where the bookies were figuring on the amount of fresh money
they were about to begin taking out of the national capital. The
tough-looking man had a horsey look and a horsey smell about him, and as
soon as I saw him I knew that he followed 'em in some kind of a
hanger-on capacity. He walked over to a table where a number of the
bookmakers were seated.
"'Say,' said he, leaning his hands on the table and addressing the party
in general, 'you people are sports, ain't you?'
"The looks the bookies gave the shabby-looking man were intended to
convey to him the idea that they weren't publicly posing as hot tamales,
anyhow. The man got no reply.
"'You're going to make books across the way, ain't you?' the
up-against-it-looking chap asked, with an inquiring look all around.
"'Well, what if we are?' asked one of the bookies, just for the
good-natured sake of breaking the silence.
"'Well,' said the down-at-the-heel sport, 'I've got a couple o' nags
that have been running for the past six weeks over at the Maryland
outlaw. They haven't been one, two, six in any race over there, and I've
gone broke paying entrance fees for 'em. Maybe they'll be able to do
better over across the way at Alexander. I want to chuck 'em in a couple
over there, anyhow, for luck. But I owe $30 feed bill to the Maryland
outlaw people, and I can't get my plugs away from there until the
thirty's paid. Now, you people are sports, and so'm I. What I want to
know is, will you people cough up the thirty for me as a loan, so's I
can get that pair o' mine down here?'
"The bookies listened to the man with gradually increasing smiles, and
when he finished they gave him the laugh in chorus.
"'Stop your kidding,' said one of them. 'I can get all the outlaw
racehorses I want for $2 a head.'
"They all chipped in with a crack at the doleful-looking sport, who
appeared to be rather a guileless sort of chap for a man with a short
stable of racers.
"'They're a good pair, all right, and one of 'em's on edge, too,' he
persisted. 'He worked six furlongs in 1:21 flat a couple of days ago.'
"The bookies all looked at the man as if he were demented.
"'One twenty-one flat for a six-furlong route!' exclaimed one of them.
'Why, look here, my friend, you're not smoking hard enough to suppose
you can win down here with a skate that does well when he works six
furlongs in that time, are you? Don't you know that there's a whole
bunch over there now that can go that route in 1:16 or better?'
"'Well, they've got a chance, anyhow,' said the shabby man. 'Do I get
the $30 to get 'em out o' hock?'
"The bookies all turned their faces the other way, then, and when the
man with the pair of hocked nags saw that it wasn't any use he dug his
hands into his pockets disconsolately and shambled out.
"On the day that the meeting opened I saw the shabby man in the betting
ring. I was behind him when he handed one of the bookies a $5 bet on one
of the horses entered in the second race of the day. The bookmaker had
belonged to the party that gave the laugh to the shabby man when he
asked for the $30.
"'Playing 'em, eh' said the bookie, smiling at the run-down-looking man.
'Couldn't get your pair away from the Maryland outlaw, I suppose.'
"'Yes, I dug up and got 'em out,' said the man. 'They're here now. The
one you just gave me a ticket on at $100 to $5 belongs to me.'
"'Oh, is that so?' asked the bookmaker. 'Well, I hope you win. But
you've got a couple of 3 to 5 shots to beat, you know.'
"'I got a chance,' was all the man said, walking away.
"I took a look at his horse, the rank outsider in the race, when he went
to the post with the others. He was a six-year-old gelding, and he
looked rank and broken down. A boy that the shabby man had brought along
from the Maryland outlaw was on the horse. It was a mile race, and the
horse was twelfth in a field of twelve. I saw the gloomy-looking, shabby
man in the paddock after the race superintending the rubbing down of his
nag. He seemed to be a whole lot in the dumps.
"The same horse was entered in the fourth race on the next day's card.
It was a field of crack outlaw performers, and his horse was again the
extreme outsider at 40 to 1. I saw the shabby man walk around putting
down $2 bets here and there on his plug, and I felt sorry for him. The
bookies simply smiled commiseratingly at him. The hard-looking man's
horse finished ninth in a field of nine.
"'Why don't you cut it out?' asked one of the bookmakers of the man with
the tough appearance. 'You're wasting your stake.'
"'I got a chance,' was the reply.
"The man got out his other horse on the following day. He got 50 to 1 on
him for the six-furlong race, and his plug, another rank and no-account
looker, finished last. This was the horse that could work six furlongs
in 1:21. The seedy man's confidence in his pair of skates seemed rather
pathetic to me.
"After each of his horses had been in about half a dozen races each,
always finishing last, the both of them, and the seedy man putting twos
and fives down on them right along until the bookies felt like not
taking his money, I thought he'd take a tumble and quit the game. But on
the eleventh day of the meeting his 'mile racer,' the six-year-old
gelding, was entered again. He went to the post with a field composed of
the cracks among the outlaws. I happened to be close to the seedy man
when he went around according to his custom, putting down small bets on
his horse. He seemed to be rather better fixed than usual that day, for
he had quite a bundle of fives with him.
"'What do I get on my horse?' he asked the first bookie he struck.
"The layer grinned, for he knew there were eight or ten good ones in the
race, three or four of them quoted around even money.
"'I've got 75 to 1 hung up about him, and all you want of it,' said the
bookie. 'You can write your own ticket, in fact.'
"'Hundred to 1?' asked the seedy man.
"'Why, sure,' replied the bookmaker. And he took $5 of the 'owner's'
money at 100 to 1. Just out of curiosity I followed the seedy man in his
tour of the books and I saw him put down $70 in $5 bets on his horse to
win at 100 to 1. It struck me then that there was to be something done
on the seedy man's horse. But I wasn't capping the bookies' game, and
I've got a fad for minding my own business, anyhow, and so I kept off
the race and went into the stand to watch it. I had a hunch to play the
seedy man's horse for a good wad, but I reflected that if I got on and
the good thing went through the bookies 'ud be suspicious about such a
well-known player as I was being in on it, and in the investigation the
seedy man might be cut out, and I didn't want to knock him. But I surely
was a whole lot interested in the way that race was to come out.
"I took a good look at the seedy man's horse as they filed past the
stand to the post. He looked much better and pretty nippy at that for
such a rancid outsider. The same boy that had ridden the horse in his
first race at Alexander Island and landed him nowhere was up. It was a
mile race.
"The favorite, a horse called Walcott--4 to 5 on in the betting--got off
on the right foot with a jump and started to tiptoe the field. At the
quarter he led by three lengths, with the second choice, a good outlaw
named Halcyon, beginning to set sail for him. The rest of the field of
thirteen were all strung out, the seedy man's horse 'way in the ruck.
But I kept my glasses on that horse all the way, and I could see that at
the half he was under the devil's own pull. The boy had half a dozen
wraps on him and I felt then, even if the favorite was still a good four
lengths in the lead, and going easily, that there was but one horse in
the race, and that horse the seedy man's. It was a watermelon just
opening, but I suppose I was the only man at the track that happened to
have got next to the game. The judges didn't observe, of course, that
the seedy owner's horse was under twenty wraps, for they looked upon him
as a dead one and paid no attention to his running.
"At the far turn Walcott, the favorite, was still three or four lengths
in front, Halcyon, the No. 2 choice, having fallen back, beaten out.
They were all in a bunch behind the leader, and all going mighty well at
the head of the stretch. All the time I had my glass focused on the
horse belonging to the shabby man. Walcott seemed to be just galloping,
as I say, at the head of the stretch, when I saw the jockey suddenly sit
down on the shabby man's horse and start to ride a-horseback. It was
pretty, I tell you, to see that old six-year-old hop out after the
galloping favorite and chase him down the stretch. The old horse,
without a bit of whipping or spurring--the boy had simply given him his
head--pumped up like an express engine, and the favorite was taken out
of his gallop and extended, under whip and spur, before they were half
way down the stretch. Passing the stand, Walcott and the seedy man's
horse were nose and nose, the latter gaining at every jump. Walcott was
beaten a head on the wire by the rank outsider in a pretty finish.
"The stewards had the seedy man in the stand immediately and then called
the boy up. It was an astonishing reversal of form, and action seemed to
be called for. The seedy man's story was straight, however. He had given
his horse a half pint of whisky before the race and he supposed that was
responsible for the win. Doping horses was all right at Alexander, and
so the stewards couldn't kick about that. The stewards touched upon the
ringer question, but the seedy man was such a simple kind of duck, and
his story was so connected about past owners of his two horses and their
life-long careers on the outlaw tracks, that the stewards finally
declared the race all hunk and the bets stood.
"I saw the shabby man cash his $70 worth of 100 to 1 tickets. He didn't
gloat any over the bookies who had grinned in his teeth before the
race--just collected his money quietly, saying: 'Well, I had a chance,
didn't I?' The bookies were confident that the seedy man had a mighty
valuable pair of ringers on his staff, and that one of them had just won
the mile race in the beautiful, finely-drawn nose finish, but they
couldn't welch on their bets. With his $7000 the seedy man took his
string of two away the next day.
"I ran across him last summer at the St. Louis Fair Grounds' racing. He
was no longer a seedy man. He was covered with gig lamps, and he had it
in every pocket. Said I to him:
"'D'ye remember that neat 100 to I thing you pulled off in Washington a
few years ago? There was some quality in that old outlaw of yours that
got the money.'
"He looked at me with a broad grin.
"'Outlaw be damned,' said he. 'That horse was one of the cracks out of
the West, on licensed tracks. He was a bit of paint. He had done a mile
in 1:39-1/2 twice--round miles--and he was as game as a wild turkey egg.
Me and my pardner pulled down $20,000 or so, running him as a ringer all
over the country. I was going to open my six-furlonger in Washington
that time, but $7000 was enough. My six-furlonger was a crack from
Frisco. He was dyed, too. Six furlongs in 1:14 was a common canter for
him. The Willie Wises back in the East are not so many at that, are
they?'"