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PECULIAR RACING FIGURE "Parson" Parkes, the English Clergyman-Trainer, and His Lifes Work. The English trainer, A. W. "Parson" Parkes, who recently died in England, was for several years an Episcopal clergyman and always a peculiar character. He was wiser about horses than souls and resigned to train the horses of Mr. Bleackley and was successful. Commenting on the "Parsons" death, the Special Commissioner of the London Sportsman wrote as follows: "After Mr. Bleackleys death he trained intermittently at Epsom, Shrewton and elsewhere for various owners, but on the outbreak of the war he gave up racing and set himself energetically to war work. He had managed to secure a particularly good machine for riiaking horseshoes, and he obtained from Lord Kitchener a contract to supply as many shoes as he could as long as the war lasted. He soon had about 300 men working in day and night shifts, and turned out millions of shoes. He had never really lost the parsons instincts, and he neither attended a race meeting nor made a single bet until the war ended. Then, having done his patriotic work, he went back to his first love, and having met Mr. Dickson, who has important interests in the steel trade, he set about training for that gentleman, and was almost immediately successful with such winners as Piraeus and Orange William. He was educated at Dublin and Durham Universities and graduated with first-class honors. I can well imagine that as a preacher he would be second to none, for he was. an extraordinarily ready and eloquent speaker. No one whom I ever heard surpassed him, especially on election platforms, for which he was always in great request. Nor did I ever meet a man who was better or more amusing company."
