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LEXINGTONS LEXINGTON AID TO THE TURF Charley Trevathan Reactant wbo bo is one of the stars of the New York Journal pays the following tri ¬ bute butte to old Lexington that is high class in its way wayUncas Uncas Uncaps is dead The last of the Lexingtons Lexington has gone the long route and the names of the most illustrious of the families which have been born out of the bluegrass of the sunny south has passed into history and will be no more save in pedigree pedigreeIt pedigree It is much to have been the last of the Lex Alex ¬ ingtons intones it is much to have been a Lexington at all no matter how distant the relationship For be it known Lexington in his day was himself a king the master of them all in that sportsmans sportsman good time when horses ran four miles rested forty minutes and ran four miles more before they might claim the prize which waited for them at the winning post Lecompte Recomputed however beat him in a fourmile Fourier heat race and he has some sons or daughters alive aliveLexington Lexington was a race horse the first really great horse which America might call all its own He met all of his day over all sorts of distances and he always won which is the test of a racing king Of course there had been Sir Henry and Eclipse and Boston and Lecompte Recomputed and other great ones before Lexington but he was the horse horseThe horseshoe The story of his race is the tale of the grand ¬ est achievements of the American turf and in ¬ volves evolves the names of the grandest of turfmen Turkmen It brings back poor old Richard Ten Broeck Brock the gallant sportsman who invaded England with his American horses and won with them as Lorillard and Croker Crocker have done in later years Ten Broeck Brock was much the kind of sportsman that Lexington was a race horse and when he died in a retreat for the feebleminded in California there passed the last of the Ten Broecks Brocks BroecksLexington Lexington was a bay horso hors by fourmile Fourier Bos Boos ¬ ton out of Alice Carneal Carnal by Sarpedon Scarped He was Kentucky born and took his name from the gem town that sits in the midst of the blue grass country Starting as a 3yearold he was always a race horse At one time he was the idol of the whole south He once ran a match over the old Metairie Meteorite course at New Orleans and it was a saying at the time that the visiting Kentuckians came back home with enough gold to sink a steamboat In his career of continuous victory he won several fortunes for Ten Broeck Brock BroeckThen Brocket Then the saddest of all facts came to him Through some illness or other this king went stone blind After racing from north to south and sweeping everything before him he saw the daylight go out and his name was no more on the lips of the crowd But his fame was not to die A J Alexander the farseeing proprie propriety ¬ tor tore of the Woodburn Woodbury Farm near Lexington bought the blind king and he paid the enor senor ¬ mous modus price of 15000 for him Fifteen thous thus ¬ and dollars for a blind horse Ridiculous And even Kentucky laughed but Alexander firm in his faith said Laugh on some day l will sell a son of his for more money moneyOut money Out in California lived and still lives Theo ¬ dore adore Winters swarthy picturesque high tashioned fashioned and wealthy One day his best mare was beaten in a 4mile race by a horse called Lodi Wroth at the defeat Winters started East with the avowed purpose of finding a horse that would humble this Lodi to the dust At St Louis he saw Norfolk and loved him He dick ¬ ered erred with Alexander for his bay horse which looked so much like Lexington It was a long dicker until Alexander said 15000 Winters agreed to pay the price next morning morningThat morning That night Alexander thought of his Ken ¬ tucky tuck boast When Winters came with the money next day Alexander said ho must have 15001 Winters hotheaded said no and walked away Jim Eoff Geoff Winters friend was standing near Ho seized Winters coattails and pleaded with hiin chin Winters said never neverThen everything Then said Eoff Geoff Ill pay the 1 before Ill see the trade fall through And he did and to the day of his death ho owned 1 worth of Norfolk NorfolkThere Norfolk There were other sons of Lexington nearly all of them great ones but this Norfolk in color size disposition and accomplishment was easily the best one He had a career of romance He traveled all the way to California before the railroads were built going by way of the Isth Kist ¬ mus emus and walking from sea to sea Ho was never beaten when he met the greatest lot of fourmilers Fourier in the world and he was then the cause of more than one duel when that mode of settling sporting differences was in vogue vogueHe vogue He met Lodi and defeated him in a sensa sense ¬ tional tonal race at fourmile Fourier heats There were three judges in the stand Brave old Colonel Gift of Tennessee represented Winters and Norfolk The Lodi man was a citizen of prominence When the two selected the third man the Lodi people put up a job on Gift and the third man was a part owner in Lodi In the first heat Nor ¬ folk won by a good neck Colonel Gift so de ¬ cided chided and was amazed when the other two judges insisted that it was a dead heat heatGift hematite Gift turned and left the stand They are robbers Mr Winters aud Maud I wont stay in the stand standFor Stanford For Gods sake go back and do the best you can for me pleaded Winters WintersGift Winters Gift climbed back into the box and thus de ¬ livered Gemmen Emend because Mr Winters has asked me to do it Ive I've come back here to jedge edge this race out But I want to say that if thah hah is ary Cary other deadheat deadbeat like that last one this stand will be cleaned out and Ill be the last man in it itNorfolk kinsfolk Norfolk won the next two heats heatsWhen heats When Lt came time for Norfolk to retire he went like Lexington with an unbroken record of achievement and his sons and daughters car ¬ ried reid his name on Everybody knows the Em ¬ peror perform of Norfolk the Prince of Norfolk Duke of Norfolk El Rio Rey Frey and all that noble tribe El Rio Rey Frey was not beaten though fate sent him early to the retirement of the stud studOne studied One day Norfolk fell ill so ill that Winters said he could not live He called in a hired man to put the old horse out of his misery The man went into the stall closed the door waited a moment and camo cameo out Youll You'll have to get some one else Mr Winters he said Another man was tried and another and on all that farm not one could be found who would give the merciful knock on the head to this old turf hero heroFinally heroically Finally a man passing in a wagon was called in He took the ax and went in to the horse Ho camo cameo out with a quizzical look on his face faceWhat face What hoss hoses is that he asked askedIts asked Its Norfolk somebody said saidThe said The man laid down the ax climbed into his wagon and said Mr Winters if youve you've got any nocount knockout sons runnin running round here that you want killed off Ill do it for you and welcome but I cant hit that hoss hoses hossThe hosted The horso hors lingered recovered and lived long enough to be the sire of El Rio Rey Frey the best of his sons sonsSo sons So much of the tale of Norfolk is just to show how much was Lexington even after he had passed from the turf His sons were race horses but his daughters were scarcely less great They raced well and their progeny have won for thirty years the greatest events of the American turf The Lexington strain is the dominating one in American blood lines the best blood in this land landUncas lacunas Uncas Uncaps is dead It is much to have been the last of the Lexingtons Lexington It is much to have been a Lexington at all
