view raw text
APPEARANCES ARE SOMETIMES DECEPTIVE. Veteran followers of racing will recall with considerable relish an amusing incident in connection with the great Colin, which occurred before that famous horse had raced. The late Doc Streett, known to turfmen from coast to coast, had an understanding with the late James R. Keene by which he would get the horses that did not measure up to the Keene standards for his own use on the tracks. Frequently Streett acquired a performer of more than ordinary merit through this channel, as in the case of Big Ben. But the fact remained that there was usually some physical defect attached to the Keene cast-offs which went the doctors way. One day Doc Streett was standing in the paddock at Sheepshead Bay talking with a friend, when a stable boy led Colin by on a slow walk. The future champion had a blemish on his hind leg known to horsemen as a bog spavin, and Streett, noticing the marks casually, concluded it was a serious physical defect. "That there horse," he told his friend, with a nod in the direction of Colin, "is the sort of a no-account cripple Jimmie Keene used to slip me." In later years, after the Commando offspring had won renown, a reference to this incident in the hearing of Doc Streett was invitation to do battle.
