Betting on a Sure Thing: How Old-Timer Saw a Horse Win and Then Had Chance to Bet on Him., Daily Racing Form, 1920-04-17

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BETTING ON A SURE THING How OldTimer Saw a Horse Win and Then Hail Chance to Bet on Him Few there m who have ictiiilly seen a horse win and still had ii chance ti lift on him Hut that such iii incident really happened is vouched for by in oldMini tiirfiiiiiii It was back in 1SSS in a poolroom in Baltimore where after seeing tin last race oT tlu day run at Iiinlicii a number of turf followers had liurricd into town and cornered the iKiur unsuspecting iioolrooin man in his lair lairYes Yes and even the late lint Caldwell who was starting at Pimlico at the time and had started the Kiev in quest inn was hack in town and with the crowd that was shoving money through tin window to that poolroom man said the old turf ¬ man And I dont mind telling you that I was me of the first of the crowd to shove my money in after a ticket ticketThe The Howie Stakes was run that same day and old Covernor Howie who was then president of the Maryland lockey Club was there to see it Then were only three horses in tin Howie and Covington won on Huntress with Hilly llayward second with Hums tlie favorite and Isaac Murphy thinl and last on Conncmara It was a cold day after the middle of October and the race I started to tell about was a threequarters of a mile dash for sell ¬ ing platers and there were fourteen bail ones in tin field Caldwell was starting with a drum in those days and when lie would tap the drum a man down on the track would drop a starters flag to let the jockeys know it was a go After they had fussed around a while at the post Caldwc11 finally tapped the drum the man swims the red fbiK and old Locofoco beat it by about forty lengths and led all tin way home The only other ones that pot off at all wre Volta Leo 11 and Hallstou and they finished just that way wayCAUGHT CAUGHT FIRST CAR TO BALTIMORE BALTIMORECaldwell Caldwell caught the first car along with the rest of us and looked like lie was in a bigger hurry llun Mars Cassidy was the ilay lie left the Kentucky track after the fifth race thinking he had started the last ran of the day In those days the trains ran from downtown in Paltimore directly to tin track and we were back in town in fifteen minutes after fretting outside the track gates gatesThey They were racing in Kentucky at the same time and the boys used to hurry into Hill Stokes pool ¬ room which was just across the street from where the train pulhd in to play the last race or two out west lust think how soft it looked to that mob when they cot inside the poolroom and saw them still biltiiig on the last race out at Pimlico They had just seen locofoco win and there he was chalked up on the big blackboard at ten to one We bet until the telegraph tick lold us they were off and the announcer started to describe the race raceThen Then the winner oamo and it was not locofoco Specialty won Clcnmiiund was secomi and lolden Keel third and Iocofoco never trot a call callAfter After we got over tlie shock we found out what had happened In the first running of tlie race tin start was so bad that locofoco was in front of the starters flag when it dropped which showed what kind of a lead he had The race was protested on that account and the judges ordered it run over acain Of course CaMwell was not there to start them and Hilly Connors was selected to act Con ¬ nors made almost as bad a start of it as Caldwell had made of the first attempt as we found out afterward and Specialty wcn just as easily as Ijicofoco had won the first time and in the second running Locofoeo finished tenth a hundred lengths back of the winner


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1920s/drf1920041701/drf1920041701_2_7
Local Identifier: drf1920041701_2_7
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800