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RICHARD CHOKERS CAREER Brief Sketch of Boss of Tammany and His Ventures on the Turf DUBLIN Ireland May 1 The American flag its folds heavy with moisture droops at half mast above the tower of Glencairn that granite castle ten miles south of Dublin which Richard Croker built to shelter his de ¬ clining days on the isle of his birth birthWithin Within enshrouded his body lies in his room overlooking the gallop where the per ¬ formances of as fleet a stable as any man should wish warmed their owners heart heartFriday Friday it will be laid to rest under the old sod within a mausoleum with crypts for two not more than a stones throw from the mansion and built among the rocks beside a shaded pool Not far away in a simpler resting place lies the bones of Orby whose winning the Derby in 1907 brought more sat j isfaction to Dick Croker than any personal political achievement achievementFull Full of years honors and troubles Richard Croker has paid the last and greatest debt and gone away Time was when the dead man was a dominating figure in the troubled field of New York City and state politics As boss of Tammany his rule of the city was absolute He was born at Black Rock Ire ¬ land November 24 1843 His grandfather Major Henry Croker was inspectorgeneral in the British army one of his uncles was a member of parliament and another was a captain in the British army and a gover ¬ nor of Bermuda His father brought him to this country when but three years of age He served in General Sickles bri ¬ gade during the Civil War also in the tenth New York Engineers Entering poli ¬ tics he attracted the favorable notice of John Kelly and with his potent backing was elected alderman in 1867 again in 1869 and again in 1883 In the same year he was ap ¬ pointed fire commissioner and in 188990 was city chamberlain He fought the Tweed ring and then became the head of Tammany TammanyCroker Croker had the bredinthebone Irish lik ¬ ing for horses and horse racing and embarked in the sport as soon as he was able He owned and raced a number of horses of which one was a real smasher This was the colt Dobbins a son of the Hermit sire Mr Pickwick and the magnificent mare Thora When both were twoyearolds Dobbins was a sturdy rival of the great Domino A match race between the pair at Sheepshead Bay August SI 1893 was provocative of vast ex ¬ citement and resulted in a dead heat so there could have been no great difference between the pair pairThe The urge to go back to the ould cod had been pulling in Crokers mentality so long that in 1894 he took his horses his fam ¬ ily and his money and moved to Ireland and bought the fine Glencairn estate near Dublin As a wellappointed stud farm he made it a model He installed Dobbins at its head with no striking results But among the horses he took to Ireland was a son of Emperor of Norfolk and Clara D by Glen elg which Lucky Baldwin had raced suc ¬ cessfully under the name of Rey del Caredes Mr Croker changed his name to Amasicus and after winning a number of races in Eng ¬ land with him put him in the stud where he was highly successful in begetting extremely speedy racers But better than this he also took over the Hanover mare Rhoda B In 1904 she foaled a chestnut colt by Orme and in 1907 this colt gave him the proudest day of his life when he won the Epsom Derby and made the name of Orby famous through ¬ out the turf world Next Rhoda B gave him the exquisite filly Rhodora with which he won the One Thousand Guineas and many other stake races Orby in his turn was grandly successful in the stud his son Grand Parade winning the Epsom Derby and his wonderfully speedy daughter Diadem includ ¬ ing the One Thousand Guineas among her many brilliant triumphs They raced for others than Croker but that detracted little from his pride in their successes successesAmong Among his friends and associates Mr Croker was not given to voluble speech playing the part of a listener from whom lit ¬ tle that was said escaped But on occasions he could express himself forcibly and with terse simplicity
