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Trainers Old and New Geo Conway By SALVATOB The recent death of trainer George Con way elicited little but formal obituaries or notices of his long and honorable career It is somewhat difficult to recall when the passing of a man who had handled such a constellation of truly great race horses brought forth so little apparent regret and such for the most part inadequate appreci ¬ ation of the work he had done or the record he had established establishedFor For this however as is usually the case there were reasons reasonsIn In the first place Conway was a trainer of the old school He was personally ex ¬ tremely modest and retiring and shrinking violets are seldom festooned into bouquets in these roaring days of superpublicity and i highpowered self advertisement He was selfcontained even with his intimates and the voluble cameraglad pufffed hero of the saddling paddock now its most familiar figure was a role for which he was unfitted and that he studiously eschewed His rai ¬ ment was similarly inconspicuous It be ¬ spoke no familiarity with fashionable tail ¬ ors haberdashers or booteries but while always neat and decent was of a piece with his personality In conversation he was slow spoken and reserved and even under stress of excitement about as effervescent as a can of cold coffee Training race horses was with him something to be done and not talked about except to his employer and as was necessary among his employes It was seldom indeed that he was discovered in an unbuttoned mood and ready to be con ¬ fidential in the moderne style styleALWAYS ALWAYS NATUBAL NATUBALHis His responsibilities sat much more heavily upon him than is the usual wont with his profession He did not make a cult of being serious as disappointed interviewers and press men repeatedly accused him of doing because it was natural with him He never played to the gallery so he never played a part of any kind He was just George Con way as God and experience had made him That and nothing more moreBut But right at almost the end of his career he suffered adverse strokes of fortune that had much to do with the way in which pub ¬ licity dismissed him from view When upon his personal responsibility he withdrew War Admiral from the 1938 Suburban and disap ¬ pointed the large crowd that had gathered to see him contend for it he incurred the re ¬ sentment and disfavor of most of the mould ¬ ers of turf opinion in and around New York not only but by contagion elsewhere and that feeling in many instances mounted into a most unseemly and malicious animosity which was also extended to the perfectly innocent colt himself as well as his absent and perfectly innocent owner Those who studied without prejudice these outbreaks of virulence arid illfeeling found them aston ¬ ishing exhibitions of what was certainly any ¬ thing but sportsmanship sportsmanshipWAB WAB ADIMIBALS DEFEAT DEFEATOn On the heels of this came the defeat of War Admiral by Seabiscuit in the great match at Pimlico It was hailed with delight in many quarters not because it was be ¬ lieved that the winner was definitely the bet ¬ ter horse but just because War Admiral had been beaten And beaten moreover in a race which his trainer in advance was confident of winningThere winning There are many who consider that the Ad ¬ miral was not really the Admiral on that eventful day The subject is a matter of opin ¬ ion and can never be anything else The race proved to be a speed duel for which that of the Admiral usually so dazzling seemed to be dull His last two previous races had been over the longer routes of the Saratoga and Jockey Club Gold Cups in which stam ¬ ina and not speed was the decisive factor He won them with facility but when short ¬ ly afterward he was obliged to take off as if for a quarter race with Seabiscuit the re ¬ sult was decided in ten jumps against him himConway Conway had not been a well man for sev ¬ eral years past had been on the verge of re ¬ tirement for some time and was really only waiting to round out the Admirals career before he entered private life But the re ¬ verse at Pimlico was not to be his final one Taking the Admiral to Florida for a second try for the 50000 handicap at Hialeah which the colt had taken the previous sea ¬ son and reintroducing him to the public under the most glittering auspices with the great prize apparently well within his grasp the cup was literally snatched from his lips and the day of days found the Admiral in the hospital instead of going to the post From it he never really emerged for after the illness that took him at Hialeah had been put behind him he developed the ankle trouble that wrote finis to his turf career careerHIS HIS LIFES WOBK WOBKIt It must be remembered of Conway that the Glen Riddle Stable was the only one of importance that he ever had charge of that it was never a large one and that it consisted solely of Mr Riddles homebred horses barring a scattering few and unim ¬ portant exceptions From among these he developed two of the greatest performers seen in this country or any other during the past fifteen years each of which won over 200000 Crusader and War Admiral In addition he saddled many other good ones of which several just escaped the first flight He won most of the principal fixtures of the eastern turf several of them repeat ¬ edly He achieved one feat without prece ¬ dent and that may perhaps remain so He twice won the Suburban with the same horse Crusader in 1923 and again in 1924 and both styleIn times in spreadeagle style In none of the numerous obituaries of Con way that came to my notice was there any special mention of the fact that his real mentor as a trainer the man from whom he learned the great secrets of his profes ¬ sion was Matt Byrnes but such was the fact It was from the great master that he acquired the solid basis upon which he erect ¬ ed the successful structure of his life work He was the last man as far as I am aware who could speak with authority regarding the methods the secrets and the successes of the man who made Salvator and Firenze king and queen of the turf at one and the same time and in addition brought out a host of lesser horses historic in our turf an ¬ nals nalsTrainers Trainers training racing Conway had lived to see those with which he first be ¬ came familiar all recede into what now I seems a dim and distant past semifabulous I With his departure from the scene one of our last real links with it is severed I
