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A CHAT WITH "LUCKY" BALDWIN. "Out East a tale is traveling its way which says that the old man of Santa Anita is in his dotage; that he Is almost totally blind; that the race course will know him never again, and that the last of the great breeding establishments of California is to be broken up" says a writer in the San Francisco Examiner. "I found "Lucky Baldwin attending to the onerous and numerous calls of his immense land holdings, his brain as clear for the accumulation of dollars as in the days when he was getting the nickname of Lucky. His complexion is like a babes and his eyes, which have troubled him for ten months, are almost normal, lie was almost in-hulled when I asked him if he intended breaking up his stud. Now, where did you get that, boy? he querulously queried. What put such a notion into your head? Go down there to Hie barns and look at that bunch of yearlings and see if youd quit breeding. Youll find some Cruzados sucklings there that would keep you in the business. No, not business the fun of the thing. Thats what I breed for. I want to have good race horses come off this ranch. Ive had some good ones, too, havent I? and the eyes took on a twinkle. Even now, at his age, he Is striving to breed a great stallion to take the place of Grlnstead, Rutherford and Emperor of Norfolk. . lie sent ten Emperor mares and bred them to Watercress with the idea that he might get a great sire. He bred La Goleta to Tiie Bard in tiie east with the same idea. The American blood for me, he said. It has won me many and .many a race and I dont believe lu sending abroad and paying a high price for a sire when I can get such combinations as Watercress and Lexington right here at home. How can you beat that, son? Its tiie best. "I asked him the name of the best horse lie ever owned. Why, boy, if I told you -youd laugh. It was that lilly Slnaloa, he said. Yes, that brown filly. Better than any of them she was. Better than Emperor of Norfolk? Yes. Better than Mollie McCarty? Yes. Better than Los Angeles? Yes. Because she could run faster and pack weight, too. She took up a big, heavy burden, I dont remember how much, but it was more than 120, and worked a mile and a quarter at Monmouth Park, I think it was, in 2:01. That was a second faster than the record. Some of the racing officials in the East knew of it and they offered to get up a special stake at a mile and a quarter the next spring for Sinaloa and Mr. Haggins Salvator. I left her In the east that winter just for the stake and Albert Cooper let her die from pneumonia. She was the fastest and the gamest one of them all, son, and you neednt smile. There was only one of her. " You asked me about Mollie McCarty. She was a good mare, all right, and if the track had been right that day in Louisville when she ran the great match with Ten Broeck she would have beaten bim sure. She didnt run in my name in that race, but I bought her-from Mr. Winters before she left California to go east for the match. You know that was the biggest race wed had since the old-time matches at four miles. Mollie was not herself that day, and the climate killed her chances. Bud Doble and his partner, Conley, arranged that match and Ill tell you now that the gate money was evenly cut into three parts, one-third going to each horse and one-third to the promoters. The race itself was for blood, however. " That gave Mollie such a black eye in the East that they culled her the California plug. She was in a cup race at Chicago afterward and on her I won the biggest bet of my turf career. Thats what Im getting to. Nobody thought anything of her and the whole soutli was crazy over a mare called Janet, from Kentucky. She was the hottest kind of a favorite and the Southerners bet their suspenders on her. I had Clara D. in the same race and she could have won It, I believe, but I wanted Mollie to show herself. She just galloped over Janet, my son,- and I took just 1906.sh3,000 out of the auction pools. That was the heaviest bet 1 ever collected. There were others close to it, but that was the top one. " I remember one fine old gentleman who had a silk hat on snatching it off his head and smashing it on the picket fence when Mollie came galloping home. I aint got money enough left for a ticket back to Kentucky, he yelled, but I love a good race boss wherever I see one, and that mares it. I said, My friend, Ill stake you to a ticket home for your sentiment I own Mollie McCarty. He wouldnt take the money, but he left his watcli at the Grand Pacific that night. The Grand Pacific safe was full of split-seconds wiich the Ken-tucklans and Tcnnesseeans left there after Mollie had come on home. That was racing, son, horse racing. "
