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JOCKEYS WHO BEGAN AT NEW ORLEANS. Winter Track Has Proven Valuable School for Turning Out Good Riders. To New Orleans the turf has been indebted for some of its greatest riders. Some of those who achieved success there and on the other American i tracks went to Europe to gain further honors, when : they had outgrown their usefulness in this country. Among the best remembered are Scherrer, OConnor and ONeill. These boys got their chances because poor owners, who could not afford the riders who were commanding big -salaries and fees, were forced to put them up. Many of the best of last seasons crop of jockeys may be riding at New Orleans this coming winter season, but there will be more mounts than boys, so it is reasonable to suppose there may be chances for new material and from this winter track once more may come a star to be a phenomenal performer on the eastern tracks during another summer season. Therefore, who can say what new star or stars may not spring into prominence before another season of racing in these parts To say that New Orleans once was the worlds greatest school for jockeys, is not going beyond a fact, as any turfman, whose memory carries him back fifteen years or more, will testify. It was in New Orleans that Fred Burlew discovered Frankio ONeill, and from there lie brought him to New York to ride for Newton Bennington and to pilot winners in some of the turfs greatest classics. There in New Orleans Winnie OConnor rode first into fame, as did Tommy Burns, George Odom, G rover Cleveland Fuller, Joe Scherrer, Andy Minder, Oscar Hel-gersen and others. Of course, there was the usual crop of culls, but recent years have not seen the equals of those good ones named above. No bstter jockey than George Odom ever came north from New Orleans to gain fame and fortune on the New York tracks, but had Odom never gone to New Orleans that winter about twenty years ago, it is more than probable that he never would have achieved the prominence he readied in the racing world. His riding career was not of such long duration, for already he was getting heavy, when he got his real chance. Opportunity knocked at the door of Odom when Billy Oliver, on his way to New Orleans, asked Odom to go along. But it was not on the Oliver horses that Odom got his chance, for the Scotsman had some mighty bad ones at that time. Odom had done some riding in the north, but never had amounted to anything, because at that time there were good riders about New York and good mounts were hard to get for a young and inexperienced boy. Odoms first real chance came in New Orleans, when W. J. Donahue, then training for W. E. Applegate, got hold of him. Donahue had a couple of fair horses in his stable, and when these had given Odom a few winning mounts Donahue found other good ones for him to ride. When Odom came north to Benning that season he made such a record for riding winners that he was engaged at a high salary for the stable of William Clark, after which he rode for the late W. C. Whitney, John E. Madden and Captain Sam Browns stable. The time of Tommy Burns was a couple of years ahead of that of Odom, for Burns was a star before Odom started. Burns was born up in Canada and was a hanger-on and exercise boy around the Seagram stable at the old Windsor track when Charley Boyle, then training for Seagram, shooed him away. Burns was little, but he gave slight promise of ever making a jockey. When he was put out of the Seagram stable lie was taken up by Tom Hums, a Missouri turfman, then racing in Canada, and Hums took Burns to New Orleans that winter. One winter at the Crescent City track shoved Burns into recognition. On the second winter he was a boy with such ambitions and confidence in himself that he hooked up with Joe Scherrer. then the star and idol of the west, for the riding honors? of tiie winter track. These two boys, in the battle of winning mounts, alternated first and second through one hundred days of racing. And then at the end of the meeting Burns beat Scherrer by just one mount and won a prize that had been int up by a New Orleans merchant. That was the making and completion of Burns. Everywhere there was talk of him, and Hums sold his contract on the boy to John W. Schorr. First in Chicago and then in California the following winter. Burns was the star rider. Then in the very nature of things he found New York in the heyday of racing, and his reputation had been made before lie ever climbed into a saddle on the metropolitan circuit. Those interested in his mounts had perfect confidence that they would get a ride, and they always got it. Like Burns, Grover Cleveland Fuller was kicked out of a stable in the west, only to be picked up and taken to New Orleans, where he rode into prominence. Fuller learned his lesson in just one term on the New Orleans track. This youngster was born in Chicago and was a hanger-on around the stables when racing flourished here, and J. O. Keene picked him up for an exercise boy. Later Kecne got an engagement to go to Russia to train, and he turned Fuller and his small string of horses over to Kimball Patterson to handle. The horses didnt amount to a whole lot, but Patterson was satisfied with them. Fuller, however, was more than he cared to handle, and so he bounced him from the stable. Archie Zimmer was the real making of Fuller. He picked the boy up simply because the lad seemed to have no place to go. That winter, when the racing was over in Chicago, Zimnier shipped his stable to New Orleans, and Fuller went along in a car with the horses. When Fuller began to show some promise, ZiiMiier took an interest and dug up opportun-ties for him. Sam Hildreth had the best stable at New Orleans, and Zimmer finally induced him to give Fuller a chance. The boy won on Ilildreths horses, and then other owners were seeking his services. It was during the season of 1903 that Fuller came to New York, and all during that summer he was the riding sensation of the eastern tracks. The height of his glory was readied, when lie rode W. F. Sheftels High Ball to victory in the American Derby of that year there in iiis home town of Chicago, with the tens of thousands who would have despised him but a season previous, cheering and showering him with praise and attention. But the career of Fuller was a short one. Always wild and hard to manage, his curse was a craving for strong drink. Within a year after he had been a prince among jockeys and had won an American Derby, Fuller was a down-and-outer. He had reached a pinnacle and had fallen to the depths. He had made a fortune and squandered it. But he was one of this countrys greatest jockeys while he was riding. About the same time that Fuller sprang into prominence Oscar Uelgesen, another New Orleans product, became a sensation on the tracks, but early in his career he met with a frightful fall at tiie Kenilworth track in Buffalo and, after that time, never came back to his old riding form. Andy Minder, who fifteen years ago was engaged to ride the horses of August Belmont, also had come to New York with a reputation gained at New Orleans. Minder still is light enough to ride, and is now at Havana, having ridden three on Sunday, his first mount in several years. Minder gained his reputation at New Orleans by piloting some sensational long shots first past the post. He came ahead of the time of Fuller and after that of Odom, although he still was riding when both were through. At New Orleans Minder rode and won with Big Indian at 100 to 1. He was brought to New Orleans by W. W. Lyles as a stable boy and turned over to J. J. Ogles, under whom he became a successful rider.
