view raw text
W E IGHI NG IN By EVAN SHIPMAN SARATOGA, Saratoga Springs, N. Y., Augt 19. Joe Browns Bobby Brocato had come through with a smashing race to capture the forty-; first running of the Sanford Stakes in the afternoon, and in the early evening a small group a couple of trainers, a couple of turf writers and the general management of one of our great racing associations idled over a drink in Nelson Dunstans room at the New Worden. And, of course, the" talk turned to what has become the inevitable topic whenever the Sanford Stakes is mentioned. A trainer, the little one who looked like a jockey, except that his hair is nearly white now, said, "If Id known then all the fuss it was going to cause over the years, Id have pulled to one side and let the big colt go on past. I really believe I would." The racing official said, "There have been more lies, more tall stories told about that race than any other in the history of the turf." One of the turf writers said, "Why do you think I have a private telephone number? A drunken argument starts, and they call you up at all hours to decide whether Judge Pet-tingill got him left at the post, or whether Johnny Loftus ever rode another race, or whether he was turned the wrong way of the track when the break came, or how many lengths he made up in the stretch." The track official said, "You turf writers are the ones responsible for all those crazy stories; you have a dull day and need something to fill space, and so up you come with a new story about how Upset beat Man o War." AAA The gray-haired trainer, the one who looks like a rider, said, "I was sitting on the steps of the hotel that morning with Mr. Rowe, and I told him, I said, I think we can take that big colt this afternoon. Why, youre crazy, he told me. No. Im not, I said. I saw Johnny Renewal of Sanford Stakes Stirs Up Memories Veterans Rehash Most Outstanding Running When Upset Defeated the Mighty Man o War Boy Who Rode Winner Tells Story of Race pull in at 5:30 this morning, and I went to bed last night at eight. Anybody who is going to ride that big colt needs all his sleep, needs all the head hes got." Maybe you have something there, Mr. Rowe told me. So that afternoon, the big fellow lunges, at the barrier, four times he makes these lunges, and each time Judge Pettingill calls us back. Im right beside him, and an assistant starter has hold of the big fellows head that guy used to work for Sam Hildreth later at Rancocas. And we try to line up again, and Johnnys having trouble, and I say to this assistant starter, Take him back a step, and I take a look over at the judge, and then I say, Take him back another step, and he does, and its just about a break, and Lsay, Take him back another step and he does, and -the judge lets us go, and Big Red is going back and were coming on. Naturally, we beat him away, and when Johnny gets him going, hes on the inside of me, and both of us behind Golden Broom, and, for once, that Golden Broom did not go wide on the turn, and I stay right where I am. So Johnny hollers, Let me out, let me out, Bill. But "Im- deaf, and I stay right where I am, holding him in there tight. He keeps on hollering, and I just sit there." AAA "So he did not get left at the post and that start cant be blamed on old Judge Pettingill?" we inquired during a pause". The little man sitting on a corner of Nelsons bed nodded and answered, "He certainly did not get left at the post. The rest of us broke running, and he lost a step or two at the break, him going back while .we were coming on, but he was never left, and .the judges start was all right. Then I had him fenced in, like I told you. Not until the sixteenth pole did I make a move. Then, when I set him free, he had to back out and around two horses, take back and come clear to the outside, and there was only a sixteenth to go, and we were home. That was all there was to it." AAA "Tell me," the track manager wanted to know. "At that time, he was just another good colt, wasnt he? Nobody thought that there was anything extraordinary about his being beaten then, did they It can happen to any good colt." The little man said, "If you had been at Mr. Riddles house that night, you would not have thought he was just another good colt. I was not there, of course, but we heard about it, and it took Mr. Riddle a long time to get, over that." Then he said, "Well, it certainly didnt ruin Johnny Loftus, not even with Riddle." "Of course not," was the answer, "why should it? Thats one of your cooked-up stories. Johnny rode him to win the Futurity that fall, didnt he? But Johnny held that race against me for a long time, me keeping him fenced in like that,, and it was over a year later that he squared accounts with me. The next fall a year later, at Havre de Grace and me riding Exterminator, and I hear him shout at the head of the stretch, Thats the Get the ! And out they take me." AAA And that was far away and long ago, and the story has--been told a great many times, but, each year, the number who can tell that story, depending on their own memory, dwindles sadly, until by now, the little man Continued on Page Thirty-Nina WEIGHING IN By EVAN SHIPMAN Continued from Page Forty-Fight sitting on the corner of the bed in Nelsons hotel room is about the only one left of the actors in that 1919 renewal of the San-ford Stakes, the race in which the appropriately named Upset, ridden by Willie Knapp, gave Man o War, with Johnny Loftus in the saddle, the one and only defeat of his meteoric career. As Willie Knapp tells the story, it has not grown stale, and the shadows that he evokes become living men and actual horses, emerging full-bodied from the dusty record books. As he talks, the early morning light slants fresh and vivid across the resurrected steps of a vanished hotel on Broadway, and a boy who got to bed at a sensible hour the night before whispers to a sage, old horseman, sitting there beside him on the steps before going out to the stable, that another boy would certainly miss the sleep he didnt get, that afternoon when he get:: up to ride a big, red colt, a colt that the whole race track is beginning to call a new champion maybe the best since Sysonby.
