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Horace Wade in Public Eye Since He Was Nine Years Old Sportsmans Official Boasts Colorful Literary Career Converted to Racing in 3 7 7By By TEDDY COX COXThe The task of interviewing a man who easily is a past master of obtaining inter ¬ views from important world figures ordi ¬ narily would be reason for concern but Horace Wade is a disarming engaging personality who specializes in making ten ¬ sion and restraint disappear Presently op ¬ erating as racing secretary at Sportsmans Park the 38yearold Missouriborn tran ¬ sient has made a tremendous hit with horsemen now racing in this area Hes one of those young men who seems to catch hold wherever he goes and the progress and success he is enjoying seems without end endHad Had financial gain been his ultimate goal Wade certainly would have bypassed the thoroughbred sport for even now he has a standing offer from one of the large movie studios in Hollywood at one of those fabulous salaries He became a racing convert back in 1931 however and has been fanatically religious ever since sinceIn In a comparatively short time as judged by the oldsters of the turf Wade has served as general manager of a race track steward racing secretary assistant racing secretary placing judge an assistant to the president track announcer and pub ¬ licity specialist His ascension as a turf figure has been rapid and his efforts have met with glowing satisfaction on the part of his employers factors that would make the ordinary man sit back in pardonable complacenceGenius complacence Genius Best Description DescriptionBut But Horace Wade is not an ordinary man As a matter of fact there have been times when genius rovided the best means of describing him One of his opening shots in life was a 40000word manu ¬ script for a book written at the ripe old age of nine Unfortunately however the MS was lost en route from California where he obtained part of his schooling to Chicago Undaunted by the setback young Wade ground out another and two years later had it published It was sponsored by the late Irving S Cobb and the preface was written by George Ade Titled In the Shadow of Great Peril the book sold more than 100000 copies and Wades reputation as a boy prodigy was on the upswing upswingWilliam William Randolph Hearst always on the alert for unusual features had been eying the youngster and before long had him doing a special series of interviews for his newspapers and magazine syndicate The youngster remained with Hearst for six years during which he traveled exten ¬ sively played in pictures in Hollywood and interviewed world celebrities His inter ¬ views with the Prince of Wales Calvin Coolidge Woodrow Wilson and others at ¬ tracted much attention but what possibly forged him into the spotlight more than any other phase of his budding career was his work on the illfamed LoebLeopold case Loeb and Leopold a pair of Chicago college boys had teamed in an atrocious murder and it was Boy Wonder Wade who obtained colorful interviews from them when they wouldnt squint at other news ¬ papermen Horace undoubtedly wouldnt have enjoyed his assignment so much then if he knew what he knows today that he was on the list of nine others slated for murder at the hands of the fiendish lads Success in Hollywood HollywoodWade Wade left Hearst for a Hollywood writ ¬ ing career and was a success from the beginning One of his stupendous and colosal series featured a youngster known as Mickey McGuire who was later to become famous under his real name Mickey Rooney The Mickey McGuire pic ¬ tures were designed as opposition to the popular Our Gang series seriesThat That Wade finally became dissatisfied to say the least with the cinema colony was obvious with the publication of his book titled To Hell With Hollywood He also penned the book Great Scott fashioned as a satire on a boy prodigy prodigyAlthough Although he often visited the old Tijuana race track near the Mexican border and was quite thrilled at the spectacle Wade enjoyed liis first official connection with the turf when the late Joe Catterinich in ¬ vited him to work in the publicity depart men at Bainbridge Park near Cleveland He gives Cliff Abbo who had charge of thSt section credit for teaching him the rudiments after which the next stop was Arlington Downs Texas where he took over as publicity director It seemed that he had reached a peak later when he as ¬ sumed the post of general manager at Alamo Downs another Texas track but thoroughbred racing eventually was legis ¬ lated out of existence in the Lone Star State and by the same token legislated Wade out of a job jobThe The vacation however was shortlived for the tempestuous New Englander Wal ¬ ter O Hara brought him in as assistant racing secretary at Narragansett Park On opening day the Gansett organization found itself without a man to handle the publicaddress system so Wade became it He remained a track announcer on the New England wheel for 10 years while often doubling in brass at publicity and special writing writingPublicist Publicist at Gulfstream Monmouth MonmouthGulfstream Gulfstream Park after a torrid begin ¬ ning finally managed to get its affairs in order and with Jimmy Donn at the helm obtained favorable dates in Florida and seemed set for big things The extremely important post of publicity director was open and Donn scanned the list of eligi bles from top to bottom finally settling on Wade as his man Gulfstream of course has been a towering success Monmouth Park New Jerseys swank newcomer to the racing world came next Wade assumed a similar position there while retaining his job at Gulfstream Early in 1947 it was discovered by the late Charlie Bidwill that Horaces rather heavy schedule wasnt buoyant enough so he appointed him rac ¬ ing secretary at the popular local half miler milerDuring During spare moments Wade attempts to keep track of a modest racing stable that races under the name of his mother Mrs E I Wade The outfit is competing on the New York circuit and includes the consistent filly Beausy along with Twilight Trail and Plucky Prince Wades colors have cut quite a figure in racing at times Most New England turfites well re ¬ member the consistent old plater Primer who won many races for Wade He plucked Up and Up out of a claiming race for 1800 then saw him develop into one of New Englands mostworshipped cam ¬ paigners The best horses of the 44 that he has owned probably were Lasting Peace and Bring Me Home HomeBy By the way of keeping his hand in his first love writing he dashes off from 40 to 50 magazine stories annually all about thoroughbred racing To this day he doesnt know the looks of a despised re ¬ jection slip and his work hits some of the bigtime publications Which is reason enough for Hollywood to clamor for his services in spite of To Hell With Holly ¬ wood woodI I guess I had a lot of fun while I was going through all that stuff as a young ¬ ster he reflects but actually I never started to live until I found myself own ¬ ing horses and working at a race track
