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PASSING OF THE NEGRO RIDER. Mention has been made that the little Jockey Arthur Casey, who has been displaying marked ability in the saddle at Tijuana, is a aegro. This fact would not have attracted any attention some year.-: ago. for then colored riders were plentiful and. among their lumber. w~re some of the bright particular stars of their time. John Boden, former secretary of the New York State Racing Commission, writes interestingly of the practical extinction of the negro as a race rider. "Perhaps climatic conditoas ensuing upon the transfer nee of the sport from the south to the north had something to do with this remarkable condition," be comments. "Perhaps, too. the peculiar susceptibility of the colored race to tuberculosis, and the fact that stomach troubles incident to bang fasting and the exhausting demands of redacing, added to the natural predisposition to consumption, may account in part for its failure to live in competition with the white ! oy. ••In any event, three decades of years ago the negro was in his zenith as a race rider. Mayhap naturally so then, because the majority of the owners of thoroughbred horses were in the south, and the n gre was the natural attendant of the horse. "Gradually, with the coming of the sport to the north, the i.egro jockey lost his ascendancy. The white boy b-i amc the preferred one. and today a colored race rider la almost as rare on the tracks as is a gray horse. It is a wonderful change that has come within twenty years. "Then there were Isaac Murphy, the peer in conduct and in judgment of any white rider: Lonny Clayton and his brother, both well behaved, well dressed and competent joek-ys; like Para* a, who won the first Futurity with Proctor Knott, beating the gnat Satvatar; Willie Btssaaa, who achieved sae-cese both in this country and in England: Coley Stone and Tony Hamilton. Soup Perkins, who made his detmt in the east with Henry of Navarre, and Joe Harris, who was a successful rider in California in 1907. Peerless Isaac Murphy Died in Poverty. "The majoiity of these riders are dead — those living practically all are in destitute circumstances. Those who are not dead have passed away from the turf. Isaac Murphy, the dean and the idol of the black race, as he was the pride of all horsemen, died in Louisville practically penniless. He never survived the accusation thai he was drunk wlin Tea Tray, in the summer of ISOO. defeated the great PlrenaL lie was suspeaded for thirty days by the stewards of the meeting -a most inadequate sentence if he was intoxicated — an unjust verdict if he had been drugged, tor the reason that the culprits escaped penalty altogether. Perhaps the association did not 1 are ;.i have its great new park saddled with what promised to be the gravest scandal on the American turf. "Be that as it may. it practically ended the turf carer of Murphy. He was tubercular and. in time, developed stomach trouble from his efforts to keep down to weight. This latter ailment was added to by his fondness for champagne. It was. he contended, the only liquor he could take that would strengthen without fattening him. He often said lis champagne bills were equal to all his other living expeas — aad he lived well. He probably averaged abeat 2,000 I year for t. 11 years, but he had a i amber of camp followers gad was too generous with them. " like Barnes for a time promised to maintain a high place in the jockey ranks, bat increasing weight and 9 fondness for night life dulled his judgment. An accident, too. brought on a timidity and a depression that he did not seem to be able to shake olf. He was riding in the race at Chicago in which a boy named Abbas was killed. Barnes was immeiiiati !y behind Albas when the latter felL Pikes mount sti-odt on the bay ami literally crashed the life oat of him. Barms nerve was practically gohe forever after. He rode one or two good races subsi itteatly — aotabty his victory oa Teeny la the Brooklyn Hand! ap— -hat practically hia career ended with the accident. "Pike" Barnes Career Brilliant, but Brief. "Of course su-h a life as that had to have but 1 in ending, and that a sharp one. Owners and trainers wanted riders cool- In ailed, vigorous and with nerves of steeL Hoys in the topmo-t 1 est of health were none too good and there was no room at all for the others. Barnes had the good s see not to dally about the race track and become I ■ peek. He took vwth him what was left of his savlagS and started a saloon in Chicago. His career lasted only a brief half dozen seasons and none of I. is race has ;iaie attained the eminence the colored rider had achieved. "Some may question this latter statement :ind point to AAillie Siinms. also a colored rider who has passed away from the saddle, but Sinims was a coneuteat Jockey rather than a staaallunsl one. He earned large fees when he rode for the late MlrliBgl F, DtrjraB and tor BJchard CioLcr, uuti did not appear to be a boy addicted to the disslpa-ti-ns that accounted for the downfall of many of his fellows. Put money seemed to flow from him. lie had at one time, or it was so reported, a hank account of generous proportions, and some land ea Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, but the bulk of it has gone from him. The trip which he took to England in the ill-starred Dwyer and Oroker invasion of 1886, it was said, was responsible for the bulk of his losses, and it probably was. He and Mr. Dwyer, it was believed, stood a tap on Harry Reed in the Stewards Cup when that fast horse Was left at the post. "Tony Hamilton was another of the great black riders who has gone aad has not been replaced. Friends rescued his body from a uaapeil grave and gave it a decent burial. He must Ive earned at leasp 100.000 in ten years. He had no particularly bad Vices, but he never had the slights r. appreciation of the value of money. He was without niiii -ation and, except when la the saddle, was perhaps the most stupid and unint- resting per 011 that ever pasaed through the gate of a race course. Literally Gave His Money Away. "Most jockeys have a way of talking to their mouits when on the way to the posL but tlamiltoa kept up a eeaataat kind of gibber that was always a source of amusement. Meat of the money lie earned he almost literally gave away. He stm knew its value. I!e had had a sort of ma I room growth, springing in a short time from an aader-slaed exercise boy with a cot in a stall to where he could earn hundreds of dollars in a day. "Perl rips it is Utile wonder, under the circum- stanees, that he didat appreciate its vain;. Cpam- p::urii and diamonds were his weaknesses, and in his heyday he had a large following. He never reckoned the cost of anything. The SI .000 diamond that he would vear today would be the property of his valet or his favorite tomorrow. A -bank roll to him was merely a beak roll. If might be of SI totes or of 858 or S10! notes. It was good just for so Mag as it listed. If it «ere of SI notes it probably le,to.| him just as long as would one composed entirely of SDK notes. His cashiers ko: t his accounts. Perhaps the only plac - in which be was absolutely safe from the vultures was the race track. !er there his friends kaew his failirgs and tin touchers waited until he got beyond the gates before they begin their carousing at his expense. "The Claytons- -Lonny pgllh Blailj — lasted perhaps better than any of the other boys riding for the reason that they took good care of themselves, but the white boys outstripped them and tiny had soiim- enough to* retire while they still had some of the money they had earned. One of their coa temporaries was Thom psoa, wlio rode many a "good thing ror the late .lack Mi-Donald aad the coterie of smart horsemen that made mini, J in the days of Clifton and Guttenburg. He was a particularly strong finisher, hut his career was short. He con I I not stand the climate or the reducing necessary and passed away, with no one of his color at those tracks to succeed him, if Harry Jones he excepted. Harry Jones Season a Brief One. "Put Jones lacked brain. Be was just as illiterate as Hamilton, and his season was a brief one. Perhaps in Justice to the boy it may be said that he was poorly looked after. He was not treated generously, and the boy became soar, heavy and finally met. a deserved discipline for some suspieous Work. He had no ambition afterward and drifted into the submerged. Penn shone for a time with the stable of A. H. and I. H. Morris, but he rapidly weat the way of the others. "Joe Harris, who was better known in the west than in the east, having ridden for Richard F. Carman in the season of PJ07. when he was the premier jockey at Ascot Park, was the heal of the late colored riders. He v. as killed in Texas two or three years ago. He called on a youag woman in his native town and took her for a drive. A rival warned aha not to do it again. He not onlv did 11 t heed the warning, but we.it to the Stabh When his rival kept a horse, told the liveryman he had fteea sent Im the horse, got it. took the woman out sjsd, after returning her t" her home, took the horse back to the stable. Th" rival, with an automatic pistol, killed him before Harris could tea* h for bis pistol. "Tin Harris incident is quoted aol as showing thl t the negro lias not maintained himself in the uddlc, but as illustrating hew few black boys are actually riding. True, the whites outnumber tiie blacks, en I there was the greater opportunity for a choice by trainer-, bat not so much as to Justify the present preponderance, when it is considered how many colored boys were actively and proiain ntlv iii the saddle twenty or more years ami. "There u n , escape from tie- fact that the black boys nowadays who attach themselves to stables rarely rise above the positon of rubbers or foremen. It may be that race prejudi •■ has something to do with It — just as it has in football, baseball, pugilism and other sports hut the decrease sjoa aniouius to practical extinction on the turf. In other sports save prize fighting, the colored wen were neither iuouu,jcuous uur luuiniucut."
