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HOW HILDRETH WON A HARLEM PURSE PURSEKnew Knew the Horse That Beat Gonfalon Was Not the Yearling He Bid On DIscussing the value of a picture of a horse as a means of recognition the Cincinnati Enquirer says with truth There are many turfmen wno can tell the real from the false picture at a glance In fact some men identified with the turf can recog ¬ nize a horse which they have not seen in some years After n horse has been shown at a track and has either raced or worked it is pretty hard to conceal its identity Blankets and bandages may be put on Irnl stilt some of the rail birds would be able to toKJMlt KJMlt It ItBut But the men that possess this family of being able to recognize a horse the second time seen uro not so plentiful that a ringer cannot be slipped through nt some time or another anotherThat That has happened liefore and will happen again In spite of all the vigilance exercised by the pad ¬ dock judges and Qther officials officialsSam Sam Hildreth the wellknown horseman and trainer Is one of the few that never forgets a horse that he has looked over carefully and the proof of tliis is a little affair that came off In 1902 at the Harlem track in Chicago This meeting preceded the Washington Park meeting and many eastern stables were on hand getting ready for the big American Derby Henry Ziegler shipped his great threeyearold Hermis there and along with him some horses that he had purchased abroad being part of a lot that Gene Leigh took over overOne One of the number was a bay colt named Luke Ward by Luke Blackburn Maud Ward He started on June 1 and won at 20 to 1 He won easily and Sam Hildrctlis horse Gonfalon was second Tluits the Incident but the doings came later when the discovery was made that Luke Ward dirt not run lit the race but that the horse that started was Xcw York II by Sir Modred Memento The stewards of the Western Jockey Club thereupon ordered the purse returned and it was given to Hildreth It also penalized the horses barring them from starting again during the year 1902 Mr iegler and his trainer were held blameless in the matter and that closed the incident incidentThe The cause of the mixup was the mixing up of the tags attached to the horses either in putting them on lioard of the vessel bound for America or after they arrived in New York Both Luke Ward and New York were bay colts and both three years old and the handlers who did not know one from the other made the mistake Mr Ziegler and his trainer Hughes had no chance of knowing anything about tliis and for that reason the error was accepted as an unintentional one and the two men were exonerated by the turf officials officialsThat That it was discovered at all was due to Sam Hildreths wonderful memory for horses It seems he bid on Luke Ward when he was sold as a year ¬ ling tiiree years before and when he saw the horse lit the paddock marveled over the wonderful change that the colt had made since he saw him at the sales salesAfter After the race he thought he might buy the nag and just to convince himself as to the change of appearance on the part of Luke Ward he visited the Ziegler barn After looking over the nag he declared that the horse was not Luke Ward and a protest was tiled It did not take Ions for the otlicials to ascertain that snch was the case when the registration papers of the two horses were ex ¬ amined aminedIt It can be seen from this that Sam Hildreth does know a horse though it is claimed that when lie paid J Marklein a big price for the twoyearold Tom Cogan at Memphis he thought he was buying one named Dr Walker
