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1 THE STORY OF THE SPRINTER XXV. " SS By SALVATOB. Our last chapter included a description of f the famous "toboggan slide" straightaway T , course which was the sensational feature of E Morris Park, the magnificent racing plant t built by the New York Jockey Club, in Westchester - County, near-by old Jerome Park, , which it was really intended to replace, that t historic citadel of the sport being forced off A- the map by the growth of New York City, . the lie Work on Morris Park was begun in 1888 5 ig and racing began there in 1889. It was far . ;e- and away the most imposing thing of the , ;e, kind that America had ever seen, both in Oil il its magnitude and its elegance but among r is its many wonders the "toboggan slide" at sh once assumed the place in the spot-light; . not only because it was a "new thing," but A. A- because of the ultra-sensational perform-"1 Oil ances which from the very outset took place , over it. Officially it was known as the at "Eclipse Course" but a clever newspaper . c- scribe dubbed it "the toboggan slide" and J3 from that time forward it was known at throughout the turf world by that title, the has ls other one being ignored by the public. the The opening meeting at Morris Park was g inaugurated on August 20, 1889, and the first 1j race on the program was a dash of a half-mile, for all ages, entitled Opening Scramble, lg a sweepstakes of 5.00 each, with ,000 1. added. Its avowed purpose was to test the n. speed of the new straightaway and the re-jT0 to suit was such that all expectations were ie totally eclipsed. Seven started, all sprinters of the first id. flight, among them Tom Hood, then holder :n of the six furlong record, 1:13; made over jl the Louisville "chute." The favorite was r, Britannic, from the stable of J. A. and A. H. ,g Morris, who were the builders of the new n- plant and from whom it took its name. It r.f would have been very appropriate could he C. 2. have come through, but he found the company too fast. iv Tom Hood led through the first quarter, it with Geraldine in close attendance; she ie being the four-year-old California filly owned g by Porter Ashe, of San Francisco, and sec-y ond choice at 2 to 1. Soon she took the lead, t, but was challenged by Volunteer II., owned x by Freddy Gebhardt. ir Both Ashe and Gebhardt were famous c. among the "gilded youth" of that period, being young men of wealth, social position 0 and leaders in the sporting world of the 3, "Elegant Eighties." Both were also cele-; brated for their attentions to famous thea-.; trical beauties still unforgotten. Freddy Geb- . ; hardt had been one of the most conspicuous e admirers of Mrs. Langtry, the "Jersey Lily," . ;, during her first American tour later on, as turfmen will recall, she herself became the :- proprietor of a racing stable in England i whose chief- ornament was the renowned 1 e Australian cup horse, Merman. As for Por- d ter Ashe, he had been equally conspicuous ! of if for his devotion to Lillian Russell, the "Gold- 1 en Diva" of the American musical comedy y stage, for whose sake he had committed 0 some high follies and escapades, t, Geraldine was ridden by Isaac Murphy, e "the colored Archer," perhaps the greatest : jockey ever seen upon the American turf, I while Volunteer was best ridden by the : $ equally-famous "Snapper" Garrison. The duel 1 1 that took place was, therefore, thrilling from 1 every angle horses, owners and jockeys J were all "front-page news" of the first order. J 1 Murphy, whose outstanding trait was his r ability to draw a finish line, he seeming to prefer often to win by a few inches when he might have done so by a generous margin, y s lived up to his reputation. Garrison gave j Volunteer one of his most cyclonic efforts, x and under it the Gebhardt geldihg came to , the Ashe filly, closed with her, locked her, r kept gaining, gaining, gaining, seemed to be wearing her down and beating her, but got no farther as, nursing her along in his sphinx-like style, Murphy lifted her in the V winner by the length of her dainty head. j !i When the time was flashed, for a moment , the public including the horsemen them- j selves thought a mistake must have been i i made. It read :46. j Ever since, twenty-five years before, Oli-tipa had run her half mile in :47 at Sara- toga, that recoxd had stood not only un- j beaten, but unapproached. It was the long-standing example of the most extreme speed , ever seen on the American turf. And here j r it was, not only beaten, but beaten by almost j - two full seconds. c Porter Ashe and his party were said to J have won a small fortune in wagers; and the next morning Geraldine "awoke to find e herself famous" one of the most famous g , thoroughbreds in the United States; its new a J "speed marvel," in the superlative sense of , the term. Which title she clinched later that J season by coming back again to run the "toboggan slides" last half in :46. As all j that season no other horse ran a half mile j anywhere in the country below :48, her pres- j tige may be appreciated. 1 Her feats, however, were only the most f 2 glittering of a galaxy which gave the "to- A boggan slide" a reputation that threw every- , thing else in the way of a record breaking j "racing strip" completely into the shade. The j j close of the season found it holding every fractional record possible over it, as fol- - lows: t 7 One-half mile Geraldine, 4-year-old, 117 1 pounds, :46. Five furlongs Fordham, 4-year-old, 115 3 pounds, and Britannic, 5-year-old, 122 r 3 pounds; tied, :59. v , Six furlongs El Rio Rey, 2-year-old, 126 pounds, and Tipstaff, 3-year-old, 107 pounds; f 3 tied, 1:11. t Being only six furlongs in length, no race c beyond that was possible over it, and at a that date the mongrel distances of four and c one-half and five and one-half furlongs had g " not been introduced into our turf scheme. 5 Nothing near these marks was registered a anywhere else in the country they stood out c above all rivalry "like Teneriffe or Atlas a So great was the furore the new course and its records created that the following ii in : spring the N. Y. J. C. took a step unprece- s 1 dented in American turf history and one I destined to be epochal. For the spring meet- n ! ing of 1890 it programmed the Toboggan v Slide Handicap, dash of six furlongs, over e the "slide" itself, for horses of all ages and s with a guaranteed cash value of 0,000. ii . I In previous chapters of this narrative we f 1 lhave seen the slow progress that stakes for il f T E t - , t . 5 . , r . , . . . 1 ! : I : 1 1 J y j x , j , j i j j , j j c J e J j j j f A j j - t r v f t c a c g 5 a c a ii in s I n v e s ii f il sprinters had made, how haltingly,- over a period of twenty years or more following the introduction of sprinting itself they had been experimented with, and how only one of them, the Passaic Stakes, at Monmouth Park, had really "made the grade" as a fix- ture of assured status, contended for by the -I fastest horses in training, owned by the lead- J ing owners and ridden by the leading jock- J1 eys. But the. Passaic, even at that, had never a been worth much more than ,000, gross. 0 Hence the announcement of a 0,000 guaranteed stake for sprinters set the turf world agog. The old timers who still looked 1 askance at the sprinting brigade and re- r mained loyal to the distance racer, shook their heads and muttered "degeneration" and "how have the mighty fallen!" But the lov- ers of novelty and "progress" exulted and the country rang with the innovation. It F rang to such an extent that, though the d conditions were "00 each, half forfeit, or 3" only 0 if declared," no less than 119 horses were nominated, and of these only twenty- ! one were declared, while an even twenty went to the post in the presence of one of the largest, most frenzied and heaviest wagering crowds that had ever, up to that date May 31, 1890 assembled at a race i track in Greater New York. -As. the race may be denominated in many ways as the most historic in the whole 1 range of short-distance sport in this coun- try, the summary is well worthy of repro- j duction. Here it is: TOBOGGAN SLIDE HANDICAP. For all ages; guaranteed value 0,000, of which ,000 to second and ,000 to third. Entrants, 00, half forfeit, or only 0 if de- 3 clared. Weights to be announced February 1; declarations due February 20. Winners after April 1 of two races of any value or one of ,500 to carry four pounds extra; of one of ,000 or two of ,000, 7 lbs. extra; of two w of ,000 or one of ,000, 10 lbs. extra; closed Jan. 1 with 119 entries. Six furlongs. A. Belmonts Fides, 4, 116 lbs; A. Hamilton 1 ? T R. P. Ashes Geraldine, 5, 122 lbs. I A. McCarthy, Jr. 2 s G. Walbaums Blue Rock, 4, 120 lbs. M. Bergen 3 T FitzJames, 5, 110 lbs. Barnes; Worth, 3, is ; 100 lbs. Lamley ; Madstone, 4, 118 lbs. Fitz-Patrick; the Tormentor, 3, 18 lbs. Moser; Del a. Mar, 4, 100 lbs. Morton; Seymour, 4, 107 fi for lbs. Stoval; Cartoon, 4, 116 lbs. Taral; ZZ Buddhist, 4, 120 lbs. Covington; Stride-away, 6, 122 lbs. Garrison; Cassius, 4, 116 lbs. Bunn; Forest King, 4, 111 1-2 lbs. Warwick; Stately, 4, 108 lbs. Reagan; Lady Reel, 4, 108 lbs. F. Littlefield ; Belle DOr, 5, 114 lbs. W. Hayward, Jr.; Volun-teer II., 6, 124 lbs. Barbee; Kasson, 4, 107 tb lbs. Taylor, and Sunday, 6, 110 lbs. O. P1 Lewis, finished as named. Betting 5 to 2 Fides; 3 to 1 Strideaway; L 8 to 1 Geraldine; 8 to 1 Blue Rock; 9 to 1 fo for Volunteer II.; 12 to 200 to 1 the others. ac Goodwin describes the race as follows: e "They were sent away to a magnificent th start by J. F. Caldwell, all wheeling around the bend in a perfect line. Fides then as- fr sumed a slight lead which she never after- be ward relinquished, winning a good race by re three parts of a length from Geraldine, who be came very fast at the finish. Mutuels paid pi 0.30; place, 2.15; Geraldine, 7.45. "Net value to the winner, ,900." - p F. From other contemporary accounts we tu learn that Geraldine should have won, but wi was messed about by McCarthy, suffered re- dt peated interference and did not get free until too late to come through. It is perhaps pr not assuming too much to think that had f Murphy been on hand to ride her, in the same style as the year before, she would tr. have triumphed. The time marked a new six furlong record, lowering the previous one of 1:11, held e jointly by El Rio Rey and Tipstaff, by three- to to quarters of a second. It retained this honor m for two years, when, in 1892, Yemen ran the "toboggan slide" in l:09?i this being the hi his first time 1:10 was reached or beaten. ou The superficial success of the original in, 0,000 stake for sprinters was immense. But co beneath this there was a different condition. Sq After the race ill feeling developed. It was lal asserted that the big field, big stake, and big Li betting, had led to much interference, crossing and jostling, in which the chances of K: Ky., several of the most heavily backed horses of of had gone glimmering. That Fides had been Di very luck in escaping all this, having clear se sailing throughout and that the result was not a true bill. in in Influential leaders of sport contended that Tr The such races were not beneficial to it. The th the distance was so short that it gave a horse no chance ot overcome bad luck, and that thereby rough riding, false results and the 1 like were encouraged, to which the heavy I betting further contributed. t - It also appeared that while the owners of the genuine crack sprinters were perfectly fQ willing to pay 00 to start or a forfeit of 0, the rank and file of those owning the lesser-lights were not, and that a 0,000 race was impossible without a big entry. r With all these things in evidence The New 1 York Jockey Club took the 0,000 beauty Fi under serious consideration, and the next ri spring it was conspicuous by its absence th the from their program of stake announcements. Br That right-about-face, however, proved -more than was bargained for. By marching an md up the hill, and then turning right around o and marching, down again they got no praise from anyone. Critics, public and horsemen of Df united in their expressions of disfavor. In rai race consequence, when the spring of 1892 rolled around it found the Toboggan Slide Handi- ica cap back on the prospectus, but in such a no no guise that its friends hardly knew it. The tw two 0,000 stake had shrunk to a mere ,000 3 added-money affair along the lines of the vis old Passaic, and it came and went and ere- 3 ated no excitement whatever. Ba Nevertheless a germ had been implanted 1 the body corporal of the American racing foi system. As we all know, the Toboggan S. 3. Handicap the "Slide" having been elimi- nated long ago, as the famous course for which it was named disappeared from exist- sin since ence still carries on our most important ing sprinting event. Turn to the American Rac- rer ing Manual of 1936, page 291, and you will ma find its rosier of winners; a hall of fame of 1:0 t:084, its kind. It has been run at Belmont Park in in sin since ing rer ma 1:0 t:084, in in the passing of Morris Park, and, during the "boom days" of ten years ago, once reached ,050 in value to the winner Sar-naticus, 1926. The present stake record is Gladiator, four years, 125 pounds4 the year 1921,
