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WILLIAM D BUTCH COVINGTON William D Covingion Has Pair of Speedy Juveniles at Crete Veteran Horseman High on Zig Zag and Kirwin Winners at Meeting MeetingCRETE CRETE 111 June 19 William D Butch Covington who took the blankets off two of the fastest twoyearolds at the meeting when he turned loose Kirwin and Zig Zag is the type horseman of which there are but few left in the sport Sparse of frame and so tanned by the years that his blue eyes stand out all the more in his weather whipped face Oovington frankly opines that he has two real good ones in the chestnut son of Good Advice Definite named Zig Zag and the bay son of Good Advice Grecian Beauty named Kirwin Id sell them if I could get my price because my health is not the best he observes as he speaks of them but if I got my price the excess profits tax would eat up most of it and Id be no better off than I am now gambling with them themThere There is a little yarn behind how he hap ¬ pened to buy the two twoyearolds and an ¬ other in how he happened to name them and Covingtons eyes twinkled as he related the stories in response to the question of how he picked them out and why he named them Kirwin and Zig Zag ZagI I bought them both at public auction in Lexington last fall Kirwin for 600 and Zig Zag for 900 I picked one of them out and the other picked me out I liked the looks of Zig Zag and I bought him I was walk ¬ ing down between the stalls and not paying much attention to the colts there when one of them stuck his head out at me as if he wanted to attract my attention Hello old boy I said and then I looked him over The more I looked at him the better I liked him and so I bought him himCOLT COLT DIDNT LIKE THE TRACK TRACKHes Hes not quite the colt Zig Zag is but hes a good one He didnt like the track here the other day referring to Kirwins defeat by Little Red Fox and I thought that he might have been a little short in the stake referring to the fact that he finished second to Alsab in the Joliet Stakes but after that race the other day Ive got to think that he didnt quite like the track trackI I named Kirwin after the little town in Kansas where I attended school I was born out in the prairie and didnt have a hat to wear to school the only one in the school without a hat hatI I was walking the other colt one morning and he likes to have a look at everything turned his head and when he did he stepped on my foot So he stepped on my foot real good once and I said Youre the Zig Zag glngest horse I ever did see Then I got to thinking of names and that seemed to be a good one and so I named him Zig Zag He dont zig zag yhen hes running though he runs straight straightCovington Covington has been in racing since 1886 when he came out of Kansas at the age of 33 as an apprentice blacksmith I quit that though relates Covington You had to carry the anvil around on your back in those days and that was too much for me meSam Sam Hildreth took my place He died a millionaire but when I first saw him the holes in his pants were so big the dogs could have run through them themThat That was at the New Orleans Fail Grounds the first race track I ever saw with a fence around it itDESERTS DESERTS BLACKSMITH TRADE TRADEFollowing Following his decision to desert the black ¬ smith trade Covington went to work for John S Campbell who was in partnership with J H Fenton who was in the saddlery business in Chicago He was quite a man Covington observed of Fenton Used to come to the race track with his skates strapped on him I dont know whether he was a professional skater or not but hel was supposed goodAfterward to be pretty good Afterward Campbell also trained horses for George Hankins also of Chicago Cov ¬ ington exercised horses rode a few races worked as a valet and then became stable agent and later stable foreman for Thomas H Ryan of Chicago His next connection was as stable foreman for R D Dick Williams and then he became foreman for Kay Spence SpenceBetween Between jobs he tried to get started on his own several times but as he himself stated I starved to death a couple of times and was glad to get a job Following one of these attempts to get started on his own he had charge of the training barn and broke yearlings for a year at the Audley Farm at Bcrryman BcrrymanThe The first real chance I got on my own was when I took twelve horses six of them yearlings out to California for Barney Shreiber one winter We were racing at Ascot Park and I thought I had given my two yearolds which had been yearlings when 1 left St Louis all types of schooling educa ¬ tion I had worked them coming up between horses and I had worked them between a horse and the rail and I figured they were all readyI ready I had one real good one Horace E by Bannockburn I wasnt getting much mono at the time and by the time the colt got into a race I bet all I had on him 40 because I didnt think anything around there could whip him 1 thought I had given him all sorts of schoolin but I was wrong The colt was in front in the stretch and it started to rain A man down near the rail the only one in the crowd opened his umbrella and the colt propped and I lost my money I hadnt schooled him with an umbrella umbrellaA A colt named Early Flower beat him Never heard of him since Horace E lost hit next race and then won ten straight He was shipped East with the first division later that year and was sold for 25000 He might have won another race or two after he was sold but they were kind of rough with him and he broke down downWhich Which remark prompted us to question Covington about his known aversion to the use of whips and we asked him about it No I dont care much about whips If a horse is sound and fit a whip cant make him do anything he already doesnt want to do Horses love to run theyre bred to run Whips have lost more races than theyve won wonWhile While never much of a rider himself Cov ¬ ingtons two brothers George and Aleck were good jockeys When asked which was best Covington replied I guess George was but Aleck never thought so George who won the Kentucky Derby on Macbeth in 1888 and the American Derby on Strath meath in 1891 is now a plater in Kansas City but Aleck is dead Asked who were the greatest horses he had seen in his more than a half century in racing Covingtons answer was Never did see Man o War so that lets him out Colin I guess Imp and Bannockburn was the best mudder mudderTod Tod Sloan is his nomination for the great ¬ est rider of all time Never did like any hurryup riders Covington remarks Wil ¬ lie Shaw he was a hand rider was pretty good
